initial commit of ebook 37975HEADmain

1 files changed, 4853 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/37975-8.txt b/37975-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a010217
--- /dev/null
+++ b/37975-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4853 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3), by Mary
+Cholmondeley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3)
+
+
+Author: Mary Cholmondeley
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2011  [eBook #37975]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
+generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illuminations.
+      See 37975-h.htm or 37975-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h/37975-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h.zip)
+
+
+      Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this
+      work. See
+      Volume I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973
+      Volume II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol
+
+
+
+
+
+DIANA TEMPEST.
+
+by
+
+MARY CHOLMONDELEY,
+
+Author of
+"The Danvers Jewels,"
+"Sir Charles Danvers," etc.
+
+In Three Volumes.
+
+VOL. III.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Richard Bentley & Son,
+Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
+1893.
+(All rights reserved.)
+
+
+
+
+DIANA TEMPEST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     "Time and chance are but a tide."
+
+     BURNS.
+
+
+Between aspiration and achievement there is no great gulf fixed. God
+does not mock His children by putting a lying spirit in the mouth of
+their prophetic instincts. Only the faith of concentrated endeavour,
+only the stern years which must hold fast the burden of a great hope,
+only the patience strong and meek which is content to bow beneath "the
+fatigue of a long and distant purpose;" only these stepping-stones, and
+no gulf impassable by human feet, divide aspiration from achievement.
+
+To aspire is to listen to the word of command. To achieve is to obey,
+and to continue to obey, that voice. It is given to all to aspire. Few
+allow themselves to achieve. John had begun to see that.
+
+If he meant to achieve anything, it was time he put his hand to the
+plough. He had listened and learned long enough.
+
+"My time has come," he said to himself, as he sat alone in the library
+at Overleigh on the first day of the new year. "I am twenty-eight. I
+have been 'promising' long enough. The time of promise is past. I must
+perform, or the time of performance will pass me by."
+
+He knit his heavy brows.
+
+"I must act," he said to himself, "and I cannot act. I must work, and I
+cannot work."
+
+John was conscious of having had--he still had--high ambitions, deep
+enthusiasms. Yet lo! all his life seemed to hinge on the question
+whether Di would become his wife. Who has not experienced, almost with a
+sense of traitorship to his own nature, how the noblest influences at
+work upon it may be caught up into the loom of an all-absorbing personal
+passion, adding a new beauty and dignity to the fabric, but nevertheless
+changing for the time the pattern of the life?
+
+John's whole heart was set on one object. There is a Rubicon in the
+feelings to pass which is to cut off retreat. John had long passed it.
+
+"I cannot do two things at the same time," he said. "I will ask Mrs.
+Courtenay and Di here for the hunt ball, and settle matters one way or
+the other with Di. After that, whether I succeed or fail, I will throw
+myself heart and soul into the career Lord ---- prophesies for me. The
+general election comes on in the spring. I will stand then."
+
+John wrote a letter to the minister who had such a high opinion of
+him--or perhaps of his position--preserved a copy, pigeon-holed it, and
+put it from his mind. His thoughts reverted to Di as a matter of course.
+He had seen her several times since the fancy ball. Each particular of
+those meetings was noted down in the unwritten diary which contains all
+that is of interest in our lives, which no friend need be entreated to
+burn at our departure.
+
+He was aware that a subtle change had come about between him and Di;
+that they had touched new ground. If he had been in love before--which,
+of course, he ought to have been--he would have understood what that
+change meant. As it was, he did not. No doubt he would be wiser next
+time.
+
+Yet even John, creeping mole-like through self-made labyrinths of
+conjecture one inch below the surface, asked himself whether it was
+credible that Di was actually beginning to care for him. When he knew
+for certain she did not, there seemed no reason that she should not; now
+that he was insane enough to imagine she might, he was aware of a
+thousand deficiencies in himself which made it impossible. And yet----
+
+So he wrote another letter, this time to Mrs. Courtenay, inviting her
+and Di to the hunt ball in his neighbourhood, at the end of January.
+
+And his invitation was accepted. And one if not two persons, perhaps
+even a third old enough to know better, began the unprofitable task of
+counting days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an iron winter. It affected Fritz's health deleteriously. His
+short legs raised him but little above the surface of the earth, and he
+was subject to chills and cramps owing to the constant contact of the
+under portion of his long ginger person with the snow. Not that there
+was much snow. One steel and iron frost succeeded another. Lindo, on the
+contrary, found the cold slight compared with the two winters which he
+had passed in Russia with John. His wool had been allowed to grow, to
+the great relief of Mitty, who could not "abide" the "bare-backed state"
+which the exigencies of fashion required of him during the summer.
+
+It was a winter not to be forgotten, a winter such as the oldest people
+at Overleigh could hardly recall. As the days in the new year
+lengthened, the frost strengthened, as the saying goes. The village beck
+at Overleigh froze. By-and-by the great rivers froze. Carts went over
+the Thames. Some one, fonder of driving than of horses, drove a
+four-in-hand on the ice at Oxford. The long lake below Overleigh Castle,
+which had formerly supplied the moat, was frozen feet thick. The little
+islands and the boathouse were lapped in ice. It became barely possible,
+as the days went on, to keep one end open for the swans and ducks. The
+herons came to divide the open space with them. The great frost of
+18-- was not one that would be quickly forgotten.
+
+John kept open house, for the ice at Overleigh was the best in the
+neighbourhood, and all the neighbours within distance thronged to it.
+Mothers drove over with their daughters; for skating is a healthy
+pursuit, and those that can't skate can learn.
+
+The most inaccessible hunting men, rendered desperate like the herons by
+the frost, turned up regularly at Overleigh to play hockey, or emulate
+John's figure-skating, which by reason of long practice in Russia was
+"bad to beat."
+
+John was a conspicuous figure on the ice, in his furred Russian coat
+lined with sable paws, in which he had skated at the ice carnivals at
+St. Petersburg.
+
+Mitty, with bright winter-apple cheeks and a splendid new beaver muff,
+would come down to watch her darling wheel and sweep.
+
+"If the frost holds I will have an ice carnival when Di is here," John
+said to himself; and after that he watched the glass carefully.
+
+The day of Di's arrival drew near, came, and actually Di with it. She
+was positively in the house. Archie came the same day, but not with her.
+Archie had invariably shown such a marked propensity for travelling by
+any train except that previously agreed upon, when he was depended on to
+escort his sister, that after a long course of irritation Mrs. Courtenay
+had ceased to allow him to chaperon Di, to the disgust of that
+gentleman, who was very proud of his ornamental sister when she was not
+in the way, and who complained bitterly at not being considered good
+enough to take her out. So Mrs. Courtenay, who had accepted for the sake
+of appearances, but who had never had the faintest intention of leaving
+her own fireside in such inhuman weather, discovered a tendency to
+bronchitis, and failed at the last moment, confiding Di to the charge of
+Miss Fane, who good-naturedly came down from London to assist John in
+entertaining his guests.
+
+And still the following day the frost held. The hunt ball had dwindled
+to nothing in comparison with the ice carnival at Overleigh the night
+following the ball. The whole neighbourhood was ringing with it. Such a
+thing had never taken place within the memory of man at Overleigh. The
+neighbours, the tenantry, cottagers and all, were invited. The
+hockey-players rejoiced in the rumour that there would be hockey by
+torchlight, with goals lit up by flambeaux and a phosphorescent bung.
+Would the frost hold? That was the burning topic of the day.
+
+There was a large house-party at Overleigh, a throng of people who in
+Di's imagination existed only during certain hours of the day, and
+melted into the walls at other times. They came and went, and skated and
+laughed, and wore beautiful furs, especially Lady Alice Fane, but they
+had no independent existence of their own. The only real people among
+the crowd of dancing skating shadows were herself and John, with whom
+all that first day she had hardly exchanged a word--to her relief, was
+it, or her disappointment?
+
+After tea she went up with Miss Fane to the low entresol room which had
+been set apart for that lady's use, to help her to rearrange the men's
+button-holes, which John had pronounced to be too large. As soon as Di
+took them in hand, Miss Fane of course discovered, as was the case, that
+she was doing them far better than she could herself, and presently
+trotted off on the pretext of seeing to some older lady who did not want
+seeing to, and did not return.
+
+Di was not sorry. She rearranged the bunches of lilies of the valley at
+leisure, glad of the quiet interval after a long and unprofitable day.
+
+Presently the person of whom she happened to be thinking happened to
+come in. He would have been an idiot if he had not, though I regret to
+be obliged to chronicle that he had had doubts on the subject.
+
+"I thought I should find Aunt Loo here," he said, rather guiltily, for
+falsehood sat ungracefully upon him. And he looked round the apartment
+as if she might be concealed in a corner.
+
+"She was here a moment ago," said Di, and she began to sort the flowers
+all over again.
+
+"The frost shows no signs of giving."
+
+"I am glad."
+
+After the frost John found nothing further of equal originality to say,
+and presently he sat down, neither near to her nor very far away, with
+his chin in his hands, watching her wire her flowers. The shaded light
+dealt gently with the folds of Di's amber tea-gown, and touched the
+lowest ripple of her yellow hair. She dropped a single lily, and he
+picked it up for her, and laid it on her knee. It was a day of little
+things; the little things Love glorifies. He did not know that his
+attitude was that of a lover--did not realize the inference he would
+assuredly have drawn if he had seen another man sit as he was sitting
+then. He had forgotten all about that. He thought of nothing; neither
+thought of anything in the blind unspeakable happiness and comfort of
+being near each other, and at peace with each other.
+
+Afterwards, long afterwards, John remembered that hour with the feeling
+as of a Paradise lost, that had been only half realized at the time. He
+wondered how he had borne such happiness so easily; why no voice from
+heaven had warned him to speak then, or hereafter for ever hold his
+peace. And yet at the time it had seemed only the dawning of a coming
+day, the herald of a more sure and perfect joy to be. The prophetic
+conviction had been at the moment too deep for doubt that there would be
+many times like that.
+
+"Many times," each thought, lying awake through the short winter night
+after the ball.
+
+John had discovered that to be alternately absolutely certain of two
+opposite conclusions, without being able to remain in either, is to be
+in a state of doubt. He found he could bear that blister as ill as most
+men.
+
+"I will speak to her the morning after the carnival," he said, "when all
+this tribe of people have gone. What is the day going to be like?"
+
+He got up and unbarred his shutter, and looked out. The late grey
+morning was shivering up the sky. The stars were white with cold. The
+frost had wrought an ice fairyland on the lattice. While that fragile
+web held against the pane, the frost that wrapped the whole country
+would hold also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     "A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow,
+     And pale the star-lights follow."
+
+     CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
+
+
+Towards nine o'clock in the evening carriage after carriage began to
+drive up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When Di came down, the white
+stone hall and the music-room were already crowded with guests, among
+whom she recognized Lord Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, who had
+been staying at houses in the neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night
+before, and had come on with their respective parties, to the not
+unmixed gratification of John.
+
+"Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, flying up to her. "No favouritism,
+I beg, Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one skate, and I will take the
+other. Hemsworth must make himself happy with the button-hook. Great
+heavens! Tempest, whose funeral have you been ordering?"
+
+For at that moment the alarm-bell of the Castle began to toll.
+
+"It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," said John. "That bell is
+only rung in case of fire. It is the signal for lighting up."
+
+And, headed by a band of torches, the whole party went streaming out of
+the wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant people, into the
+gardens, where vari-coloured lines of lights gleamed terrace below
+terrace along the stone balustrades, and Neptune reined in his dolphins
+in the midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden spray.
+
+The path down to the lake through the wood was lit by strings of Chinese
+lanterns in the branches. The little bridge over the frozen brook was
+outlined with miniature rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles
+wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured reed and twig glowed
+flame-colour to their inmost tracery against the darkness of the
+overhanging trees.
+
+Di walked with John in fairyland.
+
+"Beauty and the beast," said some one, probably Mr. Lumley. But only the
+"beast" heard, and he did not care.
+
+There was a chorus of exclamations as they all emerged from the wood
+into the open.
+
+The moon was shining in a clear sky, but its light was lost in the glare
+of the bonfires, leaping red and blue and intensest green on the further
+bank of the lake, round which a vast crowd was already assembled. The
+islands shone, complete circles of coloured light like jewels in a
+silver shield. The whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires flung great
+staggering shadows across the hanging woods.
+
+John and Di looked back.
+
+High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle
+built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to
+basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and
+the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed
+through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of
+fire.
+
+"They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest
+portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and
+Archie's next it, shone bravely.
+
+Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering
+light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked
+Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the
+ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic
+cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she
+sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy.
+
+Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first
+steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him
+now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her,
+fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and,
+looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in
+her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head.
+At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the
+crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but
+far the greater number gathered in dense masses to watch the "musical
+ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising
+the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out
+round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr.
+Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the
+spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma.
+
+And still the crowd increased.
+
+As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling
+fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire
+on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him.
+
+"There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said.
+
+"The more the better," said John.
+
+"Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a
+sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish
+characters some of 'em."
+
+"Sure to be," said John. "If there is any horseplay, treat it short and
+sharp. I'll back you up. I've a dozen men down here from the house to
+help to keep order. But there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen to
+keep amused and in a good temper."
+
+And, in truth, the great concourse of John's guests was enjoying itself
+to the utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling one on the top of
+the other, with perfect good humour, shouting with laughter, men, women,
+and children all together.
+
+As the night advanced an ox was roasted whole on the ice, and a cauldron
+of beer was boiled. There was a tent on the bank in which a colossal
+supper had been prepared for all. Behind it great brick fire-places had
+been built, round which the people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing,
+heating beer and soup. They were tactful, these rough Yorkshiremen; not
+one came across to the further bank set apart for "t' quality," where
+another supper, not half so decorously conducted, was in full swing by
+the boathouse. John skated down there after presiding at the tent.
+
+Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were never handed about under such
+dangerous circumstances. The best _Consommé à la Royale_ watered the
+earth. The men tottered on their skates over the frozen ground, bearing
+soup to the coveys of girls sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs.
+
+Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper together in one of the boats, Mr.
+Lumley continually vociferating, "Not at home," when called upon, and
+retaliating with Genoese pastry, until he was dislodged with oars, when
+he emerged wielding the drumstick of a chicken, and a free fight ensued
+between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed with a soup-ladle, which ended
+in Mr. Lumley's being forced on to his knees among the mince-pies, and
+disarmed.
+
+John looked round for Di, but she was the centre of a group of girls,
+and he felt aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant seat for him beside
+her, which of course she could easily have done. Presently, when the
+fireworks began, every one made a move towards the lower part of the
+lake in twos and threes, and then his opportunity came.
+
+He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and they skated down the
+ice together. Every one was skating hand in hand, but surely no two
+hands trembled one in the other as theirs did.
+
+The evening was growing late. A low mist was creeping vague and billowy
+across the land, making the tops of the trees look like islands in a
+ghostly sea. The bonfires, burning down red and redder into throbbing
+hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. The rockets rushed into the
+air and dropped in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The moon peered in
+and out.
+
+And to John and Di it seemed as if they two were sweeping on winged feet
+among a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of which they were the
+only realities. In other words, they were in love.
+
+"Come down to the other end of the lake, and let us look at the
+fireworks from there," said John; and they wheeled away from the crowd
+and the music and the noise, past all the people and the lighted islands
+and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps along the banks, away to the
+deserted end of the lake. A great stillness seemed to have retreated
+there under shadow of the overhanging trees. The little island left in
+darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels bending frozen into the
+ice, had no part or lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the medley
+of rising, falling, skimming lights. There was no sound save the ringing
+of their skates, and a little crackling of the ice among the grass at
+the edge.
+
+They skated round the island, and then slackened and stood still to look
+at the scene in the distance.
+
+One of the bonfires just replenished leapt one instant lurid high, only
+to fall the next in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the lake with a
+rush of smoke. Figures dashed in and out, one moment in the full glare
+of light, the next flying like shadows through the smoke.
+
+"It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is one, I hope I shan't wake up
+just yet."
+
+To John it was not so wild and incredible a dream as that her hand was
+still in his. She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses did not deceive
+him. He looked at it, gloved in his bare one. He held it still. He could
+not wait another moment. He must have it to keep always. Surely, surely
+fate had not thrown them together for nothing, beneath this veiled moon,
+among the silver trees!
+
+"Di," he said below his breath.
+
+"There is some one on the bank watching us," said Di, suddenly.
+
+John turned, and in the uncertain light saw a man's figure come
+deliberately out of the shadow of the trees to the bank above the ice.
+
+John gave a sharp exclamation.
+
+"What has he got in his hand?" said Di.
+
+He did not answer. He dropped her hand and moved suddenly away from
+her. The figure slowly raised one arm. There was a click and a snap.
+
+"Missed fire," said John, making a rush for the edge. But he turned
+immediately. He remembered his skates. Di screamed piercingly. In the
+distance came the crackling of fireworks, and the murmur of the
+delighted crowd. Would no one hear?
+
+The figure on the bank did not stir; only a little steel edge of light
+rose slowly again.
+
+There was a sharp report, a momentary puff of light in smoke, and John
+staggered, and began scratching and scraping the ice with his skates. Di
+raised shrieks that shook the stars, and rushed towards him.
+
+And the cruel moon came creeping out, making all things visible.
+
+"Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep away from me. He will fire again."
+
+And he did so; for as she rushed up to John, and in spite of the
+strength with which he pushed her from him, caught him in her arms and
+held him tightly to her, there was a second report, and the muff hopped
+and ripped in her hand.
+
+She screamed again. Surely some one would come! She could hear the
+ringing of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling towards her.
+Lanterns were running along the edge. Good God! how slow they were!
+
+"Go back--go back!" gasped John, and his head fell forward on her
+breast. He seemed slipping out of her arms, but she upheld him clasped
+convulsively to her with the strength of despair.
+
+"Where?" shouted voices, half-way up the lake.
+
+She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh guttural sound escaped her
+lips.
+
+The man had not gone away. She had her back to him, but she heard him
+run a few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and she knew it was to
+make his work sure.
+
+John became a dead weight upon her. She struggled fiercely with him, but
+he dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell from her grasp, exposing
+himself to full view. There was a click.
+
+With a wild cry she flung herself down upon his body, covering him with
+her own, her face pressed against his.
+
+"We will die together! We will die together!" she gasped.
+
+She heard a low curse from the bank. And suddenly there was a turmoil of
+voices, and a rushing and flaring of lights all round her, and then a
+sharp cry like the fire-engines clearing the London streets.
+
+"I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her
+hands feebly on the ice.
+
+Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a
+fine old English gentleman."
+
+Her hands touched something wet and warm.
+
+"The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling
+ebbed away together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     "And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear,
+     Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer
+     Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds."
+
+     SWINBURNE.
+
+
+When Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank
+supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps'
+shoulder. Some one, bending over her--could it be Lord Hemsworth with
+that blanched face and bare head?--was wiping her face with the
+gentleness of a woman.
+
+"Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it
+was--Miss Crupps who fell."
+
+"Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you
+will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy,
+Lumley."
+
+Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something
+out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp
+before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the
+mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something
+wrong.
+
+"I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused
+gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord
+Hemsworth.
+
+"Drink this," he said quickly, pressing the tumbler against her lip.
+
+Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss Crupps was weeping silently.
+Di pushed away the glass and stared wildly about her.
+
+What was this great crowd of eyes kept back by a chain of men? What was
+that man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning forward to see? There
+was a sound of women crying. How dark it was! Where was the moon gone
+to?
+
+"What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, stretching out her hands to Lord
+Hemsworth, and looking at him with an agony of appeal. "What has
+happened?"
+
+But he only took her hands and held them hard in his. If he could have
+died to spare her that next moment he would have done it.
+
+"When I say three," said a distinct voice near at hand. "Gently, men.
+One, two, _three_. That's it."
+
+Di turned sharply in the direction of the voice. There was a knot of
+people on the ice at a little distance. One was kneeling down. Another
+knelt too, holding a lantern ringed with mist. As she looked, the
+others raised something between them in a fur rug, something heavy, and
+began to move slowly to the bank.
+
+Her face took a rigid look. She remembered. She rose suddenly to her
+feet with a voiceless cry, and would have fallen forward on her face had
+not Lord Hemsworth caught her in his arms. He held her closely to him,
+and put his shaking blood-stained hand over her eyes. Miss Crupps sobbed
+aloud. Mr. Lumley sat down by her, telling her not to cry, and assuring
+her that it would all be all right; but when he was not comic he was not
+up to much.
+
+There was no need to keep the crowd off any longer. Their whole interest
+centred in John, and they broke away in murmuring masses along the bank,
+and down the ice, in the wake of the little band with the lantern.
+
+Now that the lantern had gone, the place was wrapped in a white
+darkness. The other lights had apparently gone out, except the red end
+of a torch on the bank. The mist was covering the valley.
+
+"Is he dead? Is he dead?" gasped Di, clinging convulsively to the friend
+who had loved her so long and so faithfully.
+
+"No, Di, no," said Lord Hemsworth, speaking as if to a child; "not dead,
+only hurt. And the doctor is there. He was on the ice when it happened.
+He was with you both almost as soon as I was. I am going to take off
+your skates. Can you walk a little with my help? Yes? It will be better
+to be going gently home. Put your hands in your muff. Here it is. You
+must put in the other hand as well. The bank is steep here. Lean on me."
+And Lord Hemsworth helped her up the bank, and guided her stumbling feet
+towards the dwindling constellation of lights at the further end of the
+lake.
+
+A party of men passed them in the drifting mist. One of them turned
+back. It was Archie, his face streaming with perspiration.
+
+"Did you get him?" asked Lord Hemsworth.
+
+"Get him? Not a chance," said Archie. "He stood on the bank till Dawnay
+and I were within ten yards of him, and then laughed and ran quietly
+away. He knew we could not follow on our skates, though we made a rush
+for him, and by the time we had got them off he was out of sight, of
+course. I expect he has doubled back, and is watching among the crowd
+now."
+
+"Would you know him again?"
+
+"No; he was masked. He would never have let me come so close to him if
+he had not been. I say, how is John?"
+
+Lord Hemsworth glared at Archie, but the latter was of the species that
+never takes a hint, like his father before him, who was always deeply
+affronted if people resented his want of tact. He called it "touchiness"
+on their part. The "touchiness" of the world in general affords tactless
+persons a perennial source of offended astonishment.
+
+"What are you frowning at me about?" said Archie, in an injured voice.
+"What has become of John? Hullo! what's that? Why, it's the omnibus.
+They have been uncommonly quick about getting it down. My word, the
+horses are giving trouble! They can't get them past the bonfires."
+
+"Go on and say Miss Tempest and Miss Crupps are coming," said Lord
+Hemsworth, "and keep places for them."
+
+He knew the omnibus had not been sent for for them, but he did not want
+Di to realize for whom it was required. Archie hurried on. Miss Crupps
+and Mr. Lumley passed at a little distance.
+
+"You are deceiving me," gasped Di. "You mean it kindly, but you are
+deceiving me. He is dead. Did not Archie say he was dead? It is no good
+keeping it from me."
+
+Lord Hemsworth tried to soothe her in vain.
+
+"The man on the bank shot twice," she went on incoherently. "I tried to
+get between, but it was no good; and I screamed, but you were all so
+long in coming. I never knew people so slow. You were too late, too
+late, too late!"
+
+Lord Hemsworth was experiencing that unbearable wrench at the heart
+which goes by the easy name of emotion. He was reading his death-warrant
+in every random word Di said. It appeared to him that he had always
+known that John loved Di; and yet until this evening he had never
+thought of it, and certainly never dreamed for a moment that she cared
+for him. He had not imagined that Di could care for any one. The ease
+with which any man can marry any woman nowadays, the readiness of women
+to give their affection to any one, irrespective of age, character, and
+antecedents, has awakened in men's minds a profound and too well
+grounded disbelief in women's love. The average woman of the present day
+is, as men are well aware, in love with marriage, and in order to attain
+to that state a preference for one person rather than another is quickly
+seen to be prejudicial; for though love conduces to happy marriages,
+love conduces also to the catastrophe of single life, and is but a blind
+leader of the blind at best.
+
+Lord Hemsworth loved Di, but that was different. The fact that she,
+being human, might be equally attached to himself or to some other man
+had never struck him. It struck him now, and for a few minutes he was
+speechless.
+
+It was only a very great compassion and tenderness that was able to
+wrestle with and vanquish the intolerable pain of the moment.
+
+"See, Di," he said gently, through his white lips. "Look at that great
+tear and hole through your muff. I saw it directly I picked it up. A
+bullet did that; do you understand?--a bullet that perhaps would have
+hit Tempest but for you. But you saved him from it. Perhaps he is better
+now, and afraid _you_ are hurt. There is the carriage coming to us; let
+us go on to meet it."
+
+And in truth the great Overleigh omnibus, with men at the horses' heads,
+was lurching across the uneven turf to meet them.
+
+"Where is John?" asked Di of Archie, peering at the empty carriage.
+
+"The doctor would not have him lifted in, after all," said Archie.
+"They went on on foot. We may as well go up in it;" and he helped in
+Lady Alice Fane and Miss Crupps, who came up at the moment. Lord
+Hemsworth followed Di and sat down by her. He was determined she should
+be spared all questioning. Mr. Lumley and Mr. Dawnay got in too, and sat
+silently staring straight in front of them. No one spoke. Archie stood
+on the step; and the long lumbering vehicle turned and got slowly under
+way--the same in which such a merry party had driven to the ball the
+night before.
+
+As they reached the courtyard a confused mass of people became visible
+within it--the guests of the evening; the girls standing about in silent
+groups, muffled to the eyes, for the cold had become intense; the men
+hurrying to and fro, getting out their own horses and helping the
+coachmen to harness them. Through the darkness came the uplifted voices
+of Lindo and Fritz in hysterics at being debarred from taking part in
+the festivities. Carriages were beginning to drive off. There was no
+leave-taking.
+
+"There is our omnibus," said Mr. Lumley to Miss Crupps. "That is Montagu
+lighting the lamps. They will be looking for us." And they got out and
+rejoined their party, nodding silently to the others, who drove on to
+the hall door, Lord Hemsworth with them: he seemed quite oblivious of
+the fact that he was not staying at Overleigh.
+
+The hall was brilliantly lighted. Every carved lion and griffin on the
+grand staircase held its lamp. The house-party was standing about in the
+hall. They looked at the remainder as they came in, but no one spoke.
+Miss Fane was blinking in their midst. The other elder ladies who had
+stayed up at the Castle whispered with their daughters. A blaze of light
+and silver came through the opened folding doors of the dining-hall,
+where supper for a large number had been prepared.
+
+"Any news?" asked Lord Hemsworth, as he guided Di to an armchair.
+
+Miss Fane shook her head.
+
+"They won't let me in," she said. "They have taken him to his room, and
+they won't let any one in."
+
+"Who is with him?" said Di, in a loud hoarse voice that made every one
+look at her.
+
+She did not see what every one else did, namely, that the neck and
+breast of her grey coat was drenched with blood--not hers.
+
+"The doctor and his sister are with him. They were both on the ice at
+the time. I think Lord Elver is there too, and his valet."
+
+Lord Hemsworth went into the dining-hall and came back with a glass of
+champagne and a roll.
+
+"Bring things out to the people," he said to the bewildered servants;
+"they won't come in here for them." And they followed with trays of wine
+and soup.
+
+Without making her conspicuous, he was thus able to force Di to drink
+and eat. She remembered afterwards his wearying pertinacity till she had
+finished what he brought her.
+
+The men, most of whom were exhausted by the pursuit of the assassin, or
+by carrying John up the steep ascent, drank large quantities of spirits.
+Archie, quite worn out, fell heavily asleep in an oak chair. The women
+were beginning to disappear in two and threes. Every one was dead beat.
+
+It was Lord Hemsworth who took the onus of giving directions, who told
+the servants to put out the lights from all the windows. Miss Fane was
+of no more use than a sheep waked at midnight for an opinion on New
+Zealand lamb would have been. She stood about and ate sandwiches because
+they were handed to her, although she and the other chaperons had just
+partaken of roast turkey; went at intervals into the picture-gallery, at
+the end of which John's room was, and came back shaking her head.
+
+It was Lord Hemsworth who helped Di to her room, while Miss Fane
+accompanied them upstairs. Di's room was still brilliantly lighted. Lord
+Hemsworth lingered on the threshold.
+
+"You will promise me to take off that damp gown at once," he said.
+
+Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar in the authoritative attitude
+which he had assumed towards Di. She and Miss Fane took it as a matter
+of course.
+
+"Yes, change all her things," said Miss Fane. "Quite right--quite
+right."
+
+"Where is your maid? Can you get her?" asked Lord Hemsworth, uneasily.
+
+"I have no maid," said Di, trying and failing to unfasten her grey
+furred coat.
+
+He winced as he saw her touch it, and then, an idea seeming to strike
+him, closed the door and went downstairs again.
+
+The servants had put out the lamps in the windows of the
+picture-gallery, leaving, with unusual forethought, one or two burning
+in the long expanse in case of need.
+
+In the shadow at the further end, near John's room, a bent figure was
+sitting, silently rocking itself to and fro. It had been there whenever
+he had ventured into the gallery. It was there still.
+
+It was Mitty--Mitty in her best violet silk that would stand of itself,
+and her black satin apron, and her gold brooch with the mosaic of the
+Coliseum that John had brought her from Rome. She raised her wet face
+out of her apron as the young man touched her gently on the shoulder.
+
+"They won't let me in to him, sir," said Mitty, the round tears running
+down her cheeks, and hopping on to her violet silk. "Me that nursed him
+since he was a baby. He was put into my arms, sir, when he was born. I
+took him from the month, and they won't let me in."
+
+"They will presently," said Lord Hemsworth. "He will be asking for you,
+you'll see; and then how vexed he will be if he sees you have been
+crying!"
+
+"And the warming-pan, sir," gasped Mitty, shaken with silent sobs,
+pointing to that article laid on the settee. "I got it ready myself. I
+was as quick as quick. And a bit of brown sugar in it to keep off the
+pain. And they said they did not want it--as if I didn't know what he'd
+like! He'll want his old Mitty, and he won't know they are keeping me
+away from him."
+
+"Some one wants you very much," said Lord Hemsworth. "Poor Miss Tempest.
+And she has no maid with her. She is not fit to be left to herself.
+Won't you go and see to her, Mitty?"
+
+But Mitty shook her head.
+
+"He may ask for me," she said.
+
+"I will stay here and come for you the first minute he asks," said Lord
+Hemsworth, moving the rejected warming-pan, and sitting down beside her
+on the hot settee. "Poor Miss Tempest! And she tried so hard to save
+him. Won't you go to her? She has only Miss Fane with her."
+
+"Miss Fane!" said Mitty, evidently with the recollection of a
+long-standing feud. "Much good she'd do a body; doesn't know chalk from
+cheese. She didn't even know when Master John had got the measles,
+though the spots was out all over him. 'It's only nettle-rash, nurse,'
+she says to me. And the same when he had them little ulsters in his
+throat. Miss Fane indeed!"
+
+And after a little more persuasion Mitty consented to go if he promised
+to come for her if John asked for her.
+
+Lord Hemsworth gave a sigh of relief as Mitty went reluctantly away. He
+was in mortal anxiety about Di. He had a nervous misgiving, increased by
+his feeling of masculine helplessness to do anything further for her,
+lest she should fall ill or faint alone in that gaily lighted room; for,
+of course, Miss Fane would not have remained. As, indeed, was the case.
+She was yawning herself out of the room when Mitty appeared.
+
+"That's it--that's it," she said, evidently relieved. "Get to bed, Di.
+No use sitting up. We shall hear in the morning;" and she departed to
+her own room.
+
+Di turned her white exhausted face slowly towards the old woman, and
+vainly tried to frame a question. Mitty's maternal instinct was aroused
+by the sight of her lamb's "Miss Dinah" sitting in her mist-damped
+clothes, which steamed where the warmth of the fire reached them. She
+had made no effort to take off her walking things, but she was passive
+under Mitty's hands, as the latter unfastened them and wrapped her in
+her warm dressing-gown.
+
+"I can't go to bed, Mitty," said Di, hoarsely, holding her gown. "Don't
+make me. Let me come and sit in the nursery with you. We shall be nearer
+there, and then I shall hear. There is no one to come and tell me
+here."
+
+The girl clung convulsively to the old woman, and the two went together
+to the nursery, and Mitty, after putting her guest into the
+rocking-chair by the fire, went down once more to ask for news. But
+there was no news. John was still unconscious, and the doctor would say
+nothing. Presently Mitty came tearfully back, and sat down on the other
+side of the fire. Lord Hemsworth, who was sitting up with Archie, had
+promised to come to the nursery the moment there was any change.
+
+The nursery still bore traces of the little party that had broken up so
+disastrously, for Mitty had invited the _élite_ of the village ladies to
+view the carnival from the nursery windows. The "rock" buns for which
+Mitty was celebrated, and one of Mrs. Alcock's best cakes, were still on
+the table, and Mitty's fluted silver teapot with a little nest of clean
+cups round it. Presently she got up, and, opening the corner cupboard,
+began to put them away; but the impulse of tidying was forgotten as she
+caught sight of John's robin mug on the top shelf. She took it down, and
+stood holding it in her old withered hands.
+
+"I give it him myself," she said, "on his birthday when he was five
+years old; twenty-four years ago come June. I thought some of his
+mother's family would have remembered his birthday if his father didn't.
+I thought something would have come by post. But there wasn't so much as
+a letter. And Mrs. Alcock give him the tin plate with the soldier on it,
+but I never let him eat off it. And we had Barker's little nephew to tea
+as he was learning to shoemaykle, but nobody took no notice of his
+birthday except me and Mrs. Alcock. And when he went to school I kep'
+his mug and his toys. He never had a many toys, but what there was I
+have 'em. And his clothes, my dear, everything since he was born, from
+his little cambric shirts, I have 'em all, put away; with a bit of
+camphor to his velvet suit as I took him to York to be measured for, on
+purpose to make him look pretty to his papa when he come home from
+abroad. But he never took a bit of notice of him--never." Mitty sat down
+by the fire, still holding the mug. "And a lace collar he had with
+it--real lace, the best as money could buy. I might spend what I liked
+on him; but no one ever took no notice of him, not even in his first
+sailor's; and he with his pretty ways and his grave talk! Mrs. Alcock
+and me has often cried over the things he'd say. There's his crib still
+in the night-nursery by my bed. I could not sleep without it was there;
+and the little blankets and sheets and piller-slips as belong, all put
+away, and not a iron mould upon 'em. Eh, dear miss, many's the time
+I've got 'em out and aired 'em, thinking maybe the day 'ud come when he
+would have a babby of his own, and I should hold it in my old arms
+before I died. And even if I was gone they'd be all ready, and the
+bassinet only wanting muslin to it. And now--oh, my lamb, my lamb! And
+they won't let his old Mitty go to him." And Mitty's grief broke into a
+paroxysm of sobbing.
+
+Di looked at the old woman rocking herself backwards and forwards, and,
+rising unsteadily, she went and knelt down by her, putting her arms
+round her in silence. She had no comfort to give in words. It seemed as
+if her strong young heart were breaking; but she realized that Mitty's
+anguish for a love knit up into so many faithful years was greater than
+hers.
+
+As she knelt, a step came along the creaking garret gallery with its
+uneven flooring.
+
+It was Lord Hemsworth.
+
+He stood in the doorway with the wan light of the morning behind him.
+His face looked pinched and aged.
+
+"He is better," he said. "He has recovered consciousness, and has
+spoken. The other doctor has arrived, and they think all will go well."
+
+And the two women who loved John clung and sobbed together.
+
+Lord Hemsworth looked fixedly at Di and went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     "Toute passion nuisible attire, comme le gouffre, par le
+     vertige. La faiblesse de volonté amène la faiblesse de tête, et
+     l'abîme, malgré son horreur, fascine alors comme un
+     asile."--AMIEL.
+
+
+People said that John had a charmed life. The divergence of an eighth of
+an inch, of a hundredth part of an inch, of a hair's-breadth and the
+little bead that passed right through his neck would have pierced the
+jugular artery, and John would have added one more to the long list of
+names in Overleigh Church. As it was, when once the direction of the
+bullet had been ascertained, he was pronounced to be in little danger.
+He rallied steadily, and without relapse.
+
+People said that he bore a charmed life, and they began to say something
+more, namely, that it was an object to somebody that it should be wiped
+out. Men are not shot at for nothing. John was not an Irish landlord.
+Some one evidently bore him a grudge. Society instantly formed several
+more or less descreditable reasons to account for John's being the
+object of some one's revenge. Half-forgotten rumours of Archie's doings
+were revived with John's name affixed to them. Decidedly there had been
+some "entanglement," and John had brought his fate upon himself. Colonel
+Tempest, just returned from foreign travel, heard the matter discussed
+at his club. His opinion was asked as to the truth of the reports, but
+he only shrugged his shoulders, and it was supposed that he could not
+deny them. Di's, Lady Alice Fane's, and Miss Crupps' names were all
+equally associated with John's in the different versions of the
+accident.
+
+Colonel Tempest did not go to see his daughter. She had been telegraphed
+for the morning after the ice carnival by Mrs. Courtenay, who had
+actually developed with the thaw the bronchitis which she had dreaded
+throughout the frost. Di and Archie, whose leave was up, returned to
+town together for once.
+
+Archie had experienced a distinct though shamed pang of disappointment
+when John's state was pronounced to be favourable.
+
+All night long, as he had sat waking and dozing beside the gallery fire
+opposite Lord Hemsworth's motionless, wakeful figure, visions of wealth
+passed in spite of himself before his mind; visions of four-in-hands,
+and screaming champagne suppers, and smashing things he could afford to
+pay for, and running his own horses on the turf. He did not want John
+to die. He had been dreadfully shocked when he had first caught sight of
+the stony upturned face almost beneath his feet, and had strained every
+nerve in his body to overtake the murderer. He did not want John to go
+where he, Archie, would have been terrified to go himself. But--he
+wanted the things John had, which his father had often told him should
+by rights have been his, and they could not both have them at one and
+the same time.
+
+He could not understand his father's fervent "Thank God!" when he
+assured him that John was out of danger.
+
+"A miss is as good as a mile," said Archie, with his smallest grin. He
+was desperately short of money again by this time, and he had no one to
+apply to. He knew enough of John to be aware that nothing was to be
+expected from that quarter. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought--how
+could he help it?--that perhaps there would be no further trouble on
+that irksome, wearisome subject; for lack of money, and the annoyance
+entailed by procuring it, was the thorn in Archie's flesh. But now the
+annoyance was still there, beginning as it were all over again, owing
+to--John. Madeleine would lend him money, he knew, but he would be a cad
+to take it. He could not think of such a thing, he said to himself, as
+he turned it over in his mind.
+
+The ice carnival and John's escape were a nine days' wonder. In ten days
+it was forgotten for a _cause célèbre_ by every one except Colonel
+Tempest.
+
+Colonel Tempest had had a fairly pleasant time abroad. While his small
+stock of ready money lasted, the remainder of the five hundred
+subtracted from the sum he had returned to John after his interview
+with Larkin, he had really almost enjoyed himself. He had picked up a
+few old companions of the hanger-on species at Baden and Homburg, and
+had given them dinners--he was always open-handed. He had the natural
+predilection for the society of his social inferiors which generally
+accompanies a predilection for being deferred to, and regarded as a
+person of importance. He was under the impression that he was the most
+liberal-minded of men in the choice of his companions, and without the
+social prejudices of his class. He had won a little at "baccarat." His
+health also had improved. On his return in December to the lodgings
+which he had left in such a panic in July, he told himself that he had
+been in a morbid state of health, that he had taken things too much to
+heart, that he had been over-sensitive; that there was no need to be
+afraid. Five months had elapsed. It would be all right.
+
+And it had been all right for about a month, and then----
+
+If the distressing theory that virtue is its own reward has any truth,
+surely sin is its own punishment.
+
+The old monotonous pains took Colonel Tempest.
+
+It is a popular axiom among persons in robust health that others
+labouring long under a painful disease become accustomed to it. It is
+perhaps as true as all axioms, however freely laid down by persons in
+one state respecting the feelings of others in a state of which they are
+ignorant, can be.
+
+The continual dropping of water wears away the stone. The stone ought,
+of course, to put up an umbrella--any one can see that--or shift its
+position. But it seldom does so.
+
+There was a continual dropping of a slowly diluted torture on the
+crumbling sandstone of Colonel Tempest's heart. The few months of
+intermission only rendered more acute the agony of the inevitable
+recommencement.
+
+As he felt in July after the fire in John's lodgings, so he felt now;
+just the same again, all over again, only worse. The porous sandstone
+was wearing down.
+
+He wandered like a ghost in the snowy places in the Park--for snow had
+followed the thaw--or paced for hours by the Serpentine, staring at the
+water. Once in a path across the Park he suddenly caught sight of John
+walking slowly in the direction of Kensington. The young man passed
+within a couple of yards of him without seeing him, his head bent, and
+his eyes upon the ground.
+
+"It is his ghost," said Colonel Tempest to himself, clutching the
+railing, and looking back at the receding figure with an access of
+shuddering horror.
+
+Another figure passed, a heavy man in an ulster.
+
+"He is being followed," thought Colonel Tempest. "It is Swayne, and he
+is following him."
+
+He rushed panting after the second figure, and overtook it at a meeting
+of the ways.
+
+"Swayne!" he gasped; "for mercy's sake, Swayne, don't----"
+
+A benevolent elderly face turned and peered at him in the twilight, and
+Colonel Tempest remembered that Swayne was dead.
+
+"My name is Smith," said the man, and after waiting a moment passed on.
+
+In a flash of memory Colonel Tempest saw Swayne's huddled figure
+crouching in the disordered bed, and the check trousers over a chair,
+and the candle on the window-sill bent double by the heat. That had
+been the manner of Swayne's departure. How had he come to forget he was
+dead, and that John was laid up at Overleigh?
+
+"I am going mad," he said to himself. "That will be the end. I shall go
+mad and tell everything."
+
+The new idea haunted him. He could not shake it off. There was nothing
+in the wide world to turn to for a change of thought. If he fell asleep
+at night he was waked by the sound of his own voice, to find himself
+sitting up in bed talking loudly of he knew not what. Once he heard
+himself call Swayne's and John's names aloud into the listening
+darkness, and broke into a cold sweat at the thought that he might have
+been heard in the next room. Perhaps the other lodger, the young man
+with the red hair, cramming for the army, knew everything by this time.
+Perhaps the lodging-house people had been listening at the door, and
+would give him in charge in the morning. Did he not at that very moment
+hear furtive steps and whispering on the landing? He rushed out to see
+the thin tabby cat, the walking funeral of the beetles and mice of the
+establishment, slip noiselessly downstairs, and he returned to his room
+shivering from head to foot, to toss and shudder until the morning, and
+then furtively eye the landlady and her daughter in curl-papers.
+
+More days passed. Colonel Tempest had had doubts at first, but gradually
+he became convinced that the people in the house knew. He was sure of it
+by the look in their faces if he passed them on the stairs. It was
+merely a question of time. They were waiting to make certain before they
+informed against him. Perhaps they had written to John. There was no
+news of John, except a rumour in the _World_ that he was to stand at the
+coming general election.
+
+Colonel Tempest became the prey of an _idée fixe_. When John came
+forward on the hustings he would be shot at and killed. He became as
+certain of it as if it had already happened. At times he believed it
+_had_ happened--that he had been present and had seen him fall forward;
+and it was he, Colonel Tempest, who had shot him, and had been taken
+red-handed with one of his old regimental pistols smoking in his hand.
+
+Colonel Tempest had those pistols somewhere. One day he got them out and
+looked at them, and spent a long time rubbing them up. They used to hang
+crosswise under a photograph of himself in uniform in his wife's little
+drawing-room. He recollected, with the bitterness that accompanies the
+remembrance of the waste of lavished affections, how he had sat with his
+wife and child a whole wet afternoon polishing up those pistols, while
+another man in his place would have gone off to his club. (Colonel
+Tempest always knew what that other man would have done.) And Di had
+been gentle and affectionate, and had had a colour for once, and had
+played with her creeping child like a cat with its kitten. And they had
+had tea together afterwards, sitting on the sofa with the child asleep
+between them. Ah! if she had only been always like that, he thought, as
+he remembered the cloud that, owing to her uncertain temper, had
+gradually settled on his home-life.
+
+An intense bitterness was springing afresh in Colonel Tempest's mind
+against his dead wife, against his dead brother, against Swayne, against
+his children who never came near him (Di was nursing Mrs. Courtenay in
+bronchitis, but that was of no account), against the world in general
+which did not care what became of him. No one cared.
+
+"They will be sorry some day," he said to himself.
+
+And still the waking nightmare remained of seeing John fall, and of
+finding he had shot him himself.
+
+More days passed.
+
+And gradually, among the tottering _débris_ of a life undermined from
+its youth, one other thought began, mole-like, to delve and creep in the
+darkness.
+
+Truly the way of transgressors is hard.
+
+No one cared what he suffered, what he went through. This was the
+constant refrain of these latter days. He had paroxysms of angry tears
+of self-pity with his head in his hands, his heart rent to think of
+himself sitting bowed with anguish by his solitary fireside. Love holds
+the casting vote in the destinies of most of us. There is only one love
+which wrings the heart beyond human endurance--the love of self.
+
+And yet more days. The sun gave no light by day, neither the moon by
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the severe cold of January a mild February had succeeded. March was
+close at hand. The hope and yearning of the spring was in the air
+already. Already in Kensington Gardens the silly birds had begun to
+sing, and the snowdrops and the little regiments of crocuses had come up
+in double file to listen.
+
+On this particular afternoon a pale London sun was shining like a new
+shilling in the sky, striking as many sparks as he could out of the
+Round Pond. There was quite a regatta at that Cowes of nursery shipping.
+The mild wind was just strong enough to take sailing-vessels across. The
+big man-of-war belonging to the big melancholy man who seemed open to an
+offer, the yachts and the little fishing-smacks, everything with a
+sail, got over sooner or later. The tiny hollow boats with seats were
+being towed along the edge in leading-reins. A wooden doll with joints
+took advantage of its absence of costume to drop out of the boat in
+which it was being conveyed, and take a swim in the open. But it was
+recovered. An old gentleman with spectacles hooked it out with the end
+of his umbrella in a moment, quite pleased to be of use. The little boys
+shouted, the little girls tossed their manes, and careered round the
+pool on slender black legs. Solemn babies looked on from perambulators.
+
+The big man started the big man-of-war again, and the whole fleet came
+behind in its wake.
+
+Colonel Tempest was sitting on a seat near the landing-place, where the
+ship-owners had run to clutch their property a moment ago. His hand was
+clenched on something he held under his overcoat.
+
+"When the big ship touches the edge," he said to himself.
+
+They came slowly across the pool in a flock. Every little boy shrieked
+to every other little boy of his acquaintance to observe how his
+particular craft was going. The big man alone was perfectly apathetic,
+though his priceless possession was the first, of course. He began
+walking slowly round. Half the children were at the landing before him,
+calling to their boats, and stretching out their hands towards them.
+
+The big one touched land.
+
+"Not this time," said Colonel Tempest to himself; "next time."
+
+How often he had said that already! How often his hand had failed him
+when the moment which he and that other self had agreed upon had
+arrived! How often he had gone guiltily back to the rooms to which he
+had not intended to return, and had lain down once more in the bed
+which had become an accomplice to the torture of every hour of darkness!
+
+Between the horror of returning once again, and the horror of the step
+into another darkness, his soul oscillated with the feeble violence of
+despair.
+
+He remembered the going back of yesterday.
+
+"I will not go back again," he said to himself, with the passion of a
+spoilt child. "I will not--I will not."
+
+"It is time to go home, Master Georgie," said a nursery-maid.
+
+"Just once more, Bessie," pleaded the boy. "Just one _single_ once
+more."
+
+"Well, then, it must be the last time, mind," said the good-natured
+arbiter of fate, turning the perambulator, and pushing it along the
+edge, while the occupant of the same added to the hilarity of the
+occasion by beating a much-chewed musical rattle against the wheel.
+
+"_The last time._" The chance words seized upon Colonel Tempest's
+shuddering panic-stricken mind, and held it as in a vice.
+
+"Next time," he said over and over again to himself. "Next time shall
+really be the last time--really the last, the very last."
+
+The boats were coming across again, straggling wide of each other; how
+quick, yet what an eternity in coming! The top-heavy boat with the red
+sail would be the first. It had been started long before the others. The
+wind caught it near the edge. It would turn over. No, it righted itself.
+It neared, it bobbed in the ripple at the brink; it touched.
+
+Colonel Tempest's mind had become quite numb. He only knew that for some
+imperative reason which he had forgotten he must pull the trigger. He
+half pulled it; then again more decidedly.
+
+There was a report. It stunned him back to a kind of consciousness of
+what he had done, but he felt nothing.
+
+There was a great silence, and then a shrieking of terrified children,
+and a glimpse of agitated people close at hand, and others running
+towards him.
+
+The man with the big boat under his arm said, "By gum!"
+
+Colonel Tempest looked at him. He felt nothing. Had he failed?
+
+The smoke came curling out at his collar, and something dropped from his
+nerveless hand and lay gleaming on the grass. There was a sound of many
+waters in his ears.
+
+"He might have spared the children," said a man's voice, tremulous with
+indignation.
+
+"That is always the way. No one thinks of _me_," thought Colonel
+Tempest. And the Round Pond and the growing crowd, and the child nearest
+him with its convulsed face, all turned slowly before his eyes, slid up,
+and disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     "Vous avez bien froid, la belle;
+     Comment vous appelez-vous?
+     Les amours et les yeux doux
+     De nos cercueils sont les clous.
+     Je suis la morte, dit-elle.
+     Cueillez la branche de houx."
+                    VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+As John lay impatiently patient upon his bed in the round oak-panelled
+room at Overleigh during the weeks that followed his accident, his
+thoughts by day, and by night, varied no more than the notes of a
+chaffinch in the trees outside.
+
+     "Oh, let the solid earth
+       Not fail beneath my feet,
+     Before I too have found
+       What some have found so sweet!"
+
+That was the one constant refrain. The solid earth had nearly failed
+beneath his feet, nearly--nearly. If the world might but cohere together
+and not fly off into space; if body and soul might but hold together
+till he had seen Di once more, till he knew for certain from her own
+lips that she loved him! Unloved by any woman until now, wistfully
+ignorant of woman's tenderness, even of its first alphabet learned at a
+mother's knee, unread in all its later language,--in these days of
+convalescence a passionate craving was upon him to drink deep of that
+untasted cup which "some have found so sweet."
+
+He had Mitty, and Mitty at least was radiantly happy during these weeks,
+with John fast in bed, and in a condition to dispense with other nursing
+than hers. She sat with him by the hour together, mending his socks and
+shirts, for she would not suffer any one to touch his clothes except
+herself, and discoursing to him about Di--a subject which she soon
+perceived never failed to interest him.
+
+"Miss Dinah," Mitty would say for the twentieth time, but without
+wearying her audience--"now, there's a fine upstanding lady for my
+lamb."
+
+"Lady Alice Fane is very pretty, too," John would remark, with the happy
+knack of self-concealment peculiar to the ostrich and the sterner sex.
+
+"Hoots!" Mitty replied. "She's nothing beside Miss Dinah. If you have
+Lady Fane with her silly ways, and so snappy to her maid, you'll repent
+every hair of your head. You take Miss Dinah, my dear, as is only
+waiting to be asked. She wants you, my precious," Mitty never failed to
+add. "I tell you it's as plain as the nose on your face" (a simile the
+force of which could not fail to strike him). "It's not that Lord
+Hemstitch, for all his pretty looks. It's _you_."
+
+And John told himself he was a fool, and then secretly felt under the
+pillow for a certain pencilled note which Di had left with the doctor on
+her hurried departure to London the morning after the ice carnival. It
+had been given to him when he was able to read letters. It was a short
+note. There was very little in it, and a great deal left out. It did not
+even go over the page. But nevertheless John was so very foolish as to
+keep it under his pillow, and when he was promoted to his clothes it
+followed into his pocket. Even the envelope had a certain value in his
+eyes. Had not her hand touched it, and written his name upon it?
+
+Lindo and Fritz, who had been consumed with ennui during John's illness,
+were almost as excited as their master when he hobbled, on Mitty's arm,
+into the morning-room for luncheon. Lindo was aweary of sediments of
+beef-tea and sticks of toast. Fritz, who had had a plethora of whites of
+poached eggs, sniffed anxiously at the luncheon-tray with its roast
+pheasant.
+
+There were tricks and Albert biscuits after luncheon, succeeded by heavy
+snoring on the hearthrug.
+
+John was almost as delighted as they were to leave his sick-room. It was
+the first step towards going to London. When should he wring permission
+from his doctor to go up on "urgent business"? Five days, seven days?
+Surely in a week at latest he would see Di again. He made a little
+journey round the room to show himself how robust he was becoming, and
+wound up the old watches lying in the _blue du roi_ Sèvres tray, making
+them repeat one after the other, because Di had once done so. Would Di
+make this her sitting-room? It was warm and sunny. Perhaps she would
+like the outlook across the bowling-green and low ivy-coloured
+balustrade away to the moors. It had been his mother's sitting-room. His
+poor mother. He looked up at the pretty vacant face that hung over the
+fireplace. He had looked at it so often that it had ceased to make any
+definite impression on him.
+
+He wondered vaguely whether the happy or the unhappy hours had
+preponderated in this room in which she was wont to sit, the very
+furniture of which remained the same as in her quickly finished day. And
+then he wondered whether, if she had lived, Di would have liked her; for
+it was still early in the afternoon, and he had positively nothing to
+do.
+
+He tried to write a few necessary letters in the absence of Mitty, who
+was busy washing his handkerchiefs, but he soon gave up the attempt. The
+exertion made his head ache, as he had been warned it would, so he
+propelled himself across the room to his low chair by the window.
+
+What should he do till teatime? If only he had asked Mitty for a bit of
+wash-leather he might have polished up the brass slave-collar in the
+Satsuma dish. He took it up and turned it in his hands. It was a heavy
+collar enough, with the owner's name engraved thereon. "Roger Tempest,
+1698."
+
+"It must have galled him," said John to himself; and he took up the gag
+next, and put it into his mouth, and then had considerable difficulty in
+getting it out again. What on earth should he do with himself till
+teatime?
+
+One of the bits of Venetian glass standing in the central niche of the
+lac cabinet at his elbow had lost its handle. He got up to examine it,
+and, thinking the handle might have been put aside within, pushed back
+the glass in the centre of the niche, which, as in so many of its
+species, shut off a small enclosed space between the tiers of drawers.
+The glass door and its little pillars opened inwards, but not without
+difficulty. It was clogged with dust. The handle of the Venetian glass
+was not inside. There was nothing inside but a little old, old, very
+old, glue-bottle, standing on an envelope, and a broken china cup beside
+it, with the broken bits in it. The hand that had put them away so
+carefully to mend, on a day that never came, was dust. They remained.
+John took out the cup. It matched one that stood in the picture-gallery.
+The pieces seemed to be all there. He began to fit them together with
+the pleased interest of a child. He had really found something to do at
+last. At the bottom of the cup was a key. It was a very small key, with
+a large head, matching the twisted handles of the drawers.
+
+This was becoming interesting. John put down the cup, and fitted the key
+into the lock of one of the drawers. Yes, it was the right one. He
+became quite excited. Half the cabinets in the house were locked, and
+would not open; of some he had found the keys by diligent search, but
+the keys of others had never turned up. Here was evidently one.
+
+The key turned with difficulty, but still it did turn, and the drawer
+opened. The dust had crept over everything--over all the faded silks and
+bobbins and feminine gear, of which it was half full. John disturbed it,
+and then sneezed till he thought he should kill himself. But he survived
+to find among the tangle of work a tiny white garment half made, with
+the rusted needle still in it. He took it out. What was it? Dolls'
+clothing? And then he realized that it was a little shirt, and that his
+mother had probably been making it for him and had not had time to
+finish it. John held the baby's shirt that he ought to have worn in a
+very reverent hand, and looked back at the picture. That bit of
+unfinished work, begun for him, seemed to bring her nearer to him than
+she had ever been before. Yes, it was hers. There was her ivory workbox,
+with her initials in silver and turquoise on it, and her small gold
+thimble had rolled into a corner of the drawer. John put back the little
+remnant of a love that had never reached him into the drawer with a
+clumsy gentleness, and locked it up. "I will show it Di some day," he
+said.
+
+The other drawers bore record. There were small relics of girlhood--ball
+cards, cotillon ribbons, a mug with "Marion Fane" inscribed in gold on
+it, a slim book on confirmation. "One of darling Spot's curls" was
+wrapped in tissue-paper. John did not even know who Spot was, except
+that from the appearance of the lock he had probably been a black
+retriever. Her childish little possessions touched John's heart. He
+looked at each one, and put it tenderly back.
+
+Some of the drawers were empty. In some were smart note-paper with faded
+networks of silver and blue initials on them. In another was an
+ornamental purse with money in it and a few unpaid bills. John wondered
+what his mother would have been like now if she had lived. Her sister,
+Miss Fane, had a weakness for gorgeous note-paper and smart work-baskets
+which he had often regarded with astonishment. It had never struck him
+that his mother might have had the same tastes.
+
+He opened another drawer. More fancy-work, a ball of silk half wound on
+a card, a roll of vari-coloured embroidery, and, thrust in among them, a
+half-opened packet of letters. The torn cover which still surrounded
+them was addressed to Mrs. Tempest, Overleigh Castle, Yorkshire.
+
+Inside the cover was a loose sheet which fell apart from the packet,
+tied up separately. On it was written, in a large cramped hand that John
+knew well--
+
+"I dare say you are wise in your generation to prefer to break with me.
+'Tout lasse,' and then naturally 'on se range.' I return your letters as
+you wish it, and as you have been kind enough to burn mine already, I
+will ask you to commit this last effusion to the flames."
+
+The paper was without date or signature.
+
+John opened the packet, which contained many letters, all in one
+handwriting, which he recognized as his mother's. He read them one by
+one, and, as he read, the pity in his face gave place to a white
+indignation. Poor foolish, foolish letters, to be read after a lapse of
+eight and twenty years. John realized how very silly his poor mother had
+been; how worldly wise and selfish some one else had been.
+
+"We ought to have been married, darling," said one of the later letters,
+dated from Overleigh, evidently after her marriage with Mr. Tempest. "I
+see now we ought. You said you were too poor, and you could not bear to
+see me poor; but I would not have minded that one bit--did not I tell
+you so a hundred times? I would have learnt to cook and mend clothes and
+everything if only I might have been with you. It is much worse now,
+feeling my heart is breaking and yours too, and Fate keeping us apart.
+And you must not write to me any more now I am married, or me to you. It
+is not right. Mother would be vexed if she knew; I am quite sure she
+would. So this is the very last to my dearest darling Freddie, from poor
+Marion."
+
+Alas! there were many, many more from "poor Marion" after the very last;
+little vacillating, feeble, gilt-edged notes, with every other word
+under-dashed; some short and hurried, some long and reproachful; sad
+landmarks of each step of a blindfold wandering on the brink of the
+abyss, clinging to the hand that was pushing her over.
+
+The last letter was a very long one.
+
+"You have no heart," wrote the pointed, slanting handwriting. "You do
+not care what I suffer. I do not believe now you ever cared. You say it
+would be an act of folly to tell my husband, but you know I was always
+silly. But it is not necessary. I am sure he knows. I feel it. He says
+nothing, but I know he knows. Oh, if I were only dead and in my grave,
+and if only the baby might die too, as I hope it will, as I pray to God
+it will! If I die and it lives, I don't know what will happen to it.
+Remember, if he casts it off, it is your child. Oh, Freddie, surely it
+can't be all quite a mistake. You were fond of me once, before you made
+me wicked, and when I am dead you won't feel so angry and impatient with
+me as you do now. And if the child lives and has no friend, you will
+remember it is yours, won't you? I am so miserable that I think God will
+surely let me die. And the child may come any day now. Last night I felt
+so ill that I dared not put off any longer, and this morning I burned
+all your letters to me, every one, even the first about the white
+violets. Do you remember that letter? It is so long ago now; no, you
+have forgotten. It is only I who remember, because it was only I who
+cared. And I burned the locket you gave me with your hair in it. It felt
+like dying to burn it. Everything is all quite gone. But I can't rest
+until you have sent me back my letters. I can't trust you to burn them.
+I know what trusting to you means. Send them all back to me, and I will
+burn them myself. Only be quick, be quick; there is so little time. If
+they come when I am ill, some one else may read them. I hope if I live I
+shall never see your face again; and if I die, I hope God will keep you
+away from me. Oh! I don't mean it, Freddie, I don't mean it; only I am
+so miserable that I don't know what I write. God forgive you. I would
+too if I thought you cared whether I did or not. God forgive us
+both.--M."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John looked back at the cover of the packet. The Overleigh postmark was
+blurred but legible. June the 8th, and the year----. _It was his
+birthday._
+
+Her lover had sent back her letters, then, with those few harsh lines
+telling her she was wise in her generation. Even the last he had
+returned. And they had reached her on the morning of the day her child
+was born. Had it been a sunny day, with no fire on the hearth before
+which Lindo and Fritz now lay stretched, into which she could have
+dropped that packet? Had she not had time even to burn them? She had
+glanced at them, evidently. Had she been interrupted, and had she thrust
+them for the moment with her work into that drawer?
+
+Futile inquiry. He should never know. And she had had her wish. She had
+been allowed to die, to hide herself away in the grave. John's heart
+swelled with sorrowing pity as at the sight of a child's suffering. She
+had been very little more. She should have her other wish, too.
+
+He gathered up the letters, and, stepping over the dogs, dropped them
+into the heart of the fire. They were in the safe keeping of the flames
+at last. They reached their destination at last, but, a little
+late--twenty-eight years too late.
+
+And suddenly, as he watched them burn, like a thunderbolt falling and
+tearing up the ground on which he stood, came the thought, "Then I am
+illegitimate."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The minute-hand of the clock on the mantelpiece had made a complete
+circuit since John had dropped the letters into the fire, yet he had not
+stirred from the armchair into which he had staggered the moment
+afterwards.
+
+His fixed eyes looked straight in front of him. His lips moved at
+intervals.
+
+"I am illegitimate," he said to himself, over and over again.
+
+But no, it was a nightmare, an hallucination of illness. How many
+delusions he had had during the last few weeks! He should wake up
+presently and find he had been torturing himself for nothing. If only
+Mitty would come back! He should laugh at himself presently.
+
+In the mean while, and as it were in spite of himself, certain facts
+were taking a new significance, were arranging themselves into an
+unexpected, horrible sequence. Link joined itself to link, and
+lengthened to a chain.
+
+He remembered his father's evident dislike of him; he remembered how
+Colonel Tempest had contested the succession when he died. As he had
+lost the case, John had supposed, when he came to an age to suppose
+anything, that the slander was without foundation, especially as Mr.
+Tempest had recognized him as his son. He had known of its existence, of
+course, but, like the rest of the world, had half forgotten it. That
+Lord Frederick Fane (evidently the Freddie of the letters) was even his
+supposed father, had never crossed his mind. If he was like the Fanes,
+why should he not be so? He might as naturally resemble his mother's as
+his father's family. He recalled Colonel Tempest's inveterate dislike of
+him, Archie's thankless reception of anything and everything he did for
+him.
+
+"I believe," said John, in astonished recollection of divers passages
+between himself and them--"I believe they think I know all the time, and
+am deliberately keeping them out."
+
+That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest had not discarded him. To
+recognize him as his son was his surest means of striking at the hated
+brother who came next in the entail.
+
+"I was made use of," said John, grinding his teeth.
+
+It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility
+was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it
+was true.
+
+"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips
+still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself.
+
+"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid
+his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall.
+The solid earth had failed beneath his feet.
+
+Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We
+could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the
+penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from
+us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the
+unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the
+deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited
+on the children heavily--heavily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     "What name doth Joy most borrow
+     When life is fair?
+                     'To-morrow.'"
+                        GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+
+On her hurried return to London the morning after the ice carnival, Di
+found Mrs. Courtenay in that condition of illness, not necessarily
+dangerous, in which the linseed poultice and the steam-kettle and the
+complexion of the beef-tea are the objects of an all-absorbing interest,
+to the exclusion of every other subject.
+
+Di was glad not to be questioned upon the one subject that was never
+absent from her thoughts. As Mrs. Courtenay became convalescent she was
+able to leave her for an hour or two, and pace in the quieter parts of
+Kensington Gardens. Happiness, like sorrow, is easier to bear
+out-of-doors, and Di had a lurking feeling that would hardly bear being
+put into words, but was none the worse company for that, that the
+crocuses and the first bird-note in the trees and the pale sky knew her
+secret and rejoiced with her.
+
+John would come to her. He was getting well, and the first day he could
+he would come to her, and tell her once more that he loved her. And she?
+Impossible, incredible as it seemed, she should tell him that she loved
+him too. Imagination stopped short there. Everything after that was a
+complete blank. They would be engaged? They would be married? Other
+people who loved did so. Words, mere words, applicable to "other
+people," but not to her and John. Could such impossible happiness ever
+come about? Never, never. She must be mad to think of such a thing. It
+could not be. Yet it was so; it was coming, it was sure, this new,
+incomprehensible, dreaded happiness, of which, now that it was almost
+within her trembling hand, she hardly dared to think.
+
+"Di," said Mrs. Courtenay one afternoon, as she came in from her walk,
+"there is a paragraph in the paper about John. He is going to contest
+---- at the general election, in opposition to the present Radical
+member. Did he say anything about it while you were at Overleigh? It
+must have been arranged some time ago."
+
+"No, granny, he did not mention it."
+
+"I am glad he is taking part in politics at last. It is time. I may not
+live to see it, but he will make his mark."
+
+"I am sure he will," said Di.
+
+Mrs. Courtenay looked in some perplexity at her granddaughter. It seemed
+to her, from Di's account, that she had taken John's accident very
+placidly. She had not forgotten the girl's apparent callousness when his
+life had been endangered in the mine. It was very provoking to Mrs.
+Courtenay that this beautiful creature, whom she had taken out for
+nearly four years, seemed to have too much heart to be willing to marry
+without love, and too little to fall genuinely in love.
+
+Mrs. Courtenay had gone to considerable expense in providing her with a
+new and becoming morning-gown for that visit, and Di had managed to lose
+one of the lace handkerchiefs she had lent her, and had come back
+unengaged after all. Mrs. Courtenay, who had taken care to accept the
+invitation for her without consulting her, and had ordered the gown in
+spite of Di's remonstrances, felt keenly that if Di had refused John,
+she had gone to that social gathering under false pretences.
+
+"Di," she said, "I seldom ask questions, but I have been wondering
+during the last few days whether you have anything to tell me or not."
+
+Considering that this was not a question, it was certainly couched in a
+form conducive to eliciting information.
+
+"I have, and I have not," said Di. "Of course I know what you expected,
+but it did not happen."
+
+"You mean John did not propose to you?"
+
+"No, granny."
+
+Mrs. Courtenay was silent. She was prepared to be seriously annoyed with
+Di, and it seemed John was in fault after all. There is no relaxation
+for a natural irritability in being angry with a person a hundred miles
+off.
+
+"I think he meant to," said Di, turning pink.
+
+Mrs. Courtenay saw the change of colour with surprise.
+
+"My dear," she said, "do you care for him?"
+
+"Yes," said Di, looking straight at her grandmother.
+
+"I am very thankful," said Mrs. Courtenay. "I have nothing left to wish
+for."
+
+"I believe I have sometimes done you an injustice," she said
+tremulously, after wiping her spectacles. "I thought you valued your own
+freedom and independence too much to marry. It is difficult to advise
+the young to give their love if they don't want to. Yet, as one grows
+old, one sees that the very best things we women have lose all their
+virtue if we keep them to ourselves. Our love if we withhold it, our
+freedom if we retain it,--what are they later on in life but dead seed
+in our hands? Our best is ours only to give. Our part is to give it to
+some one who is worthy of it. I think John is worthy. I wish he had
+managed to speak, and that it were all settled."
+
+"It is really settled," said Di. "Now and then I feel frightened, and
+think I may have made a mistake, but I know all the time that is
+foolish. I am certain he cares for me, and I am quite sure he knows I
+care for him. Granny"--blushing furiously--"I often wish now that I had
+not said quite so many idiotic things about love and marriage before I
+knew anything about them. Do you remember how I used to favour you with
+my views about them?"
+
+"I don't think they were exactly idiotic. Only the elect hesitate to
+pronounce opinions on subjects of which they are ignorant. I have heard
+extremely intelligent men say things quite as silly about housekeeping,
+and the rearing of infants. You, like them, spoke according to your
+lights, which were small. I don't know about charming men. There are not
+any nowadays. But it is always
+
+           '... a pity when charming women
+     Talk of things that they don't understand.'"
+
+"We should not have many subjects of conversation if we did not," said
+Di.
+
+And the old woman and the young one embraced each other with tears in
+their eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     "Oh, well for him whose will is strong!"
+                            TENNYSON.
+
+
+There come times in our lives when the mind lies broken on the revolving
+wheel of our thought. "I am illegitimate." That was the one thought
+which made John's bed for him at night, which followed him throughout
+the spectral day until it brought him back to the spectral night again.
+
+It was a quiver in which were many poisoned arrows. Because the first
+that struck him was well-nigh unbearable, the others did not fail to
+reach their mark.
+
+If he were nameless and penniless, he could not marry Di. That was the
+first arrow. Such marriages are possible only in books and in that
+sacred profession which, in spite of numerous instances to the contrary,
+believes that "the Lord will provide." Di would not be allowed to marry
+him, even if she were willing to do so. And after a time--a long time,
+perhaps--she would marry some one else, possibly Lord Hemsworth.
+
+John writhed. He had set his heart on this woman. He had bent her strong
+will to love him as a proud woman only can. She had been hard to win,
+but she was his as much as if they were already married; his by right,
+as the living Galatea was by right the sculptor's, who gave her marble
+heart the throbbing life and love of his own.
+
+"She is mine--I cannot give her up," he said aloud.
+
+There was no voice, nor any that answered.
+
+Strange how the ploughshare turns up little tags and ends of forgotten
+rubbish buried by the mould of a few years' dust.
+
+One utterance of Archie's, absolutely forgotten till now, was
+continually recurring to John's mind. Its barbed point rankled.
+
+"There must be a mint of money in an old barrack stuffed full of
+gimcracks like this. If ever I wanted a hundred or two, I would trot out
+one of those little silver Johnnies in no time if they were mine."
+
+And he would. If the thought of what Colonel Tempest and Archie would
+achieve after his own death had stung John as Archie said that, how
+should he bear to stand by and _see_ them do it? The books, the
+pictures, the family manuscripts which he was even then arranging, the
+jewels, the renowned diamond necklace that the Spanish government had
+offered to buy from his grandfather, which he had hoped one day to
+clasp on Di's neck--all the possessions of the past but almost regal
+state of a great name, which he had kept with such a reverent hand--he
+should live to see them cast right and left, lost, sold, squandered,
+stolen. Archie would give the diamonds to the first actress who asked
+for them. Colonel Tempest would be equally "open-handed."
+
+As the days went on, John shut his eyes to the pictures in the gallery
+as he passed through it. A mute suspense and reproach seemed to hang
+about the whole place. The Velasquez and the Titian peered at him.
+Tempest of the Red Hand clutched his sword-hilt uneasily. Mieris' old
+Dutch-woman seemed to have lost her interest in selling her marvellous
+string of onions to the little boy. Ribalta's Spanish Jesuit fingered
+the red cross of Santiago embroidered on his breast, and looked askance
+at John.
+
+John turned back many times from the library door. The new books which
+he had had bound in exact reproduction of a beautiful old missal of the
+Tempest collection, and for the arrival of which he had been eagerly
+waiting, remained untouched in their packing-cases. He could not look at
+them.
+
+Once he went into the dining-hall, unused when he was alone, and opened
+one of the ponderous shutters. The rich light pierced the solemn gloom,
+catching the silver sconces on the wall and the silver figures standing
+in the carved niches above the fireplace.
+
+"You will not give us up," they seemed to say; and the little cavalier
+turned to his lady with a shake of his head.
+
+As John closed the shutter his eyes fell on the Tempest motto on the
+pane, "Je le feray durant ma vie;" and it stabbed him like a knife.
+
+He went out into the open air like one pursued, and paced in the dead
+forest waiting for the spring. All he had held so sacred meant nothing
+then--nothing, nothing, nothing. The Tempest motto, round which he had
+bound his life, round which his most solemn convictions and aspirations
+had grown up, had nothing to do with him. He had been mocked. He, a
+nameless bastard, the offspring of a mere common intrigue, had been
+fooled into believing that he was John Tempest, the head of one of the
+greatest families in England; that Overleigh belonged to him and he to
+it as entirely as--nay, more than--his own hands and feet and eyes.
+
+It was as if he had been acting a serious part to the best of his
+ability on a stage with many others, and suddenly they had all dropped
+their masks and were grinning at him with satyr faces in grotesque
+attitudes, and he found that he alone had mistaken a screaming farce, of
+which he was the butt, for a drama of which he had imagined himself one
+of the principal figures.
+
+John laughed a harsh wild laugh under the solemn overarching trees.
+Everything, himself included, had undergone a hideous distortion. His
+whole life was dislocated. His faith in God and man wavered. The
+key-stone of his existence was gone from the arch, and the stones struck
+him as they fell round him. The confusion was so great that for the
+first few days he was incapable of action, incapable of reflection,
+incapable of anything.
+
+_Mitty!_ That thought came next. That stung. He had nothing in the wide
+world which he could call his own; no roof for Mitty, no fire to warm
+her by. He was absolutely without means. His mother's small fortune he
+had sunk in an annuity for Mr. Goodwin. What would become of Mitty? How
+would she survive being uprooted from her little nest in the garret
+gallery? How would she bear to see her lamb turned adrift upon the
+world? Mitty was growing old, and her faithful love for him would make
+the last years sorrowful which were so happy now. Oh, if he could only
+wait till Mitty died!
+
+John had not wept a tear for himself, but he hid his face against the
+trunk of one of the trees that were not his, and sobbed aloud at the
+thought of Mitty.
+
+And next day came a letter from Archie, saying that Colonel Tempest was
+at death's door in one of the London hospitals, owing to having
+accidentally shot himself with a revolver. John sent money, much more
+than was actually necessary, and drew breath. Nothing could be done
+until Colonel Tempest was either convalescent or dead. He was reprieved
+from telling Mitty anything for the moment.
+
+And as the spring was just beginning to whisper to the sleeping earth,
+and the buds of the horse-chestnut to grow white and woolly beneath the
+nursery windows, as John had seen them many and many a time--how or why
+I know not, but with the waking of the year Mitty began to fail.
+
+She had never been ill in John's recollection. She had had "a bone in
+her leg" occasionally, but excepting that mysterious ailment and a touch
+of rheumatism in later years, Mitty had always been quite well. She was
+not actually ill now, but----
+
+It was useless to tell her not to "do" her nurseries herself, and to
+positively forbid her to wash his socks and handkerchiefs. Mitty worked
+exactly the same; and John with an ache at his heart came indoors every
+day in time for nursery tea, and Mitty made him buttered toast, and was
+happy beyond words; but I think her eyesight must have begun to fail
+her, or she would have seen how grey and haggard the face of her "lamb"
+became as the days went by.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who shall say when a thought begins? Long before we see it, it was
+there, but our eyes were holden. "L'amour commence par l'ombre." So do
+many things besides love.
+
+_The letters were destroyed._ When did John think of that first, or
+rather, when did he first hear it whispered? Why was his mind always
+going back to that?
+
+He would not have burned them if he had taken time to consider, but the
+first impulse to do with them as their writer had herself intended, had
+been acted upon before he had even thought of their bearing upon himself
+and others.
+
+At any rate they were gone--quite gone--sprinkled to the four winds of
+heaven.
+
+_There was no other proof._
+
+And his--no, not his father--Mr. Tempest, who knew all about him, had
+intended him to be his heir. He had left him his name and his place,
+with a solemn charge to do his duty by them.
+
+"I have done it," said John to himself, "as those two would never have
+done. Shall I let all go to rack and ruin now? If I was not born a
+Tempest I have become one. I _am_ one, and if I marry one my children
+will be Tempests, and those two fools will not be suffered to pull
+Overleigh stone from stone, and drag a great name into the dust; as they
+would, as they assuredly would."
+
+Had not Mr. Tempest foreseen this when he exacted that solemn promise
+from John on his death-bed to uphold the honour of the family? Could he
+break that promise? And through the vain sophistries, upsetting them
+all, a mad cry rang, "Di loves me! She loves me at last! I cannot give
+her up!"
+
+The challenge was thrown out into the darkness. No one took it up.
+
+A fierce restlessness laid hold on John. He rushed up to London several
+times to hear how Colonel Tempest was going on. Each time he told
+himself that he was going to see Di. But although the first time he went
+to Colonel Tempest's lodgings the servant informed him that Di was with
+her father, he did not ask to see her. Each time he came back without
+having dared to go to the little house in Kensington. He could not meet
+those grave clear eyes with the new gentleness in them that went to his
+head like wine. He knew they would make him forget everything,
+everything except that he loved her, and would sell his very soul for
+her.
+
+Time stopped. In all this enormous interval the buds of the
+horse-chestnut had not yet burst to green. It was ages since he had seen
+the first primrose, and yet to-day, as he walked in the woods on the day
+after his return from another futile journey to London, they were all
+out in the forest still.
+
+And something stirred within him that had not deigned to take notice of
+all his feverish asseverations and wanderings, that had not rebuked him,
+that had not even listened when he had said repeatedly that he could not
+give up Di.
+
+By an invisible hand the challenge was taken up, and John knew the time
+of conflict was at hand.
+
+He walked on and on, not knowing where he went, past the forest and the
+meadowland, and away over the rolling moors, with only Lindo for his
+companion.
+
+At last his newly returned strength failing him, he threw himself down
+in the dry windswept heather. He had not outstripped his thoughts. This
+was the appointed place. He knew it even as he flung himself down. His
+hour was come.
+
+It was an April afternoon, pale and bleak. The late frost had come back,
+and had silenced the birds. One only deeply in love, somewhere near at
+hand, but invisible, repeated plaintively over and over again a small
+bird-name in the silence of the shrinking spring.
+
+And John's heart said over and over again one little word--
+
+"Di, Di, Di!"
+
+There are some sacrifices which partake of the nature of
+self-mutilation. That is why principle often falls before the onslaught
+of a deep human passion, which is nothing but the rebellion of human
+nature brought to bay, against the execution upon itself of that dread
+command of the spiritual nature, "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it
+off."
+
+To give up certain affections is with some natures to give up all
+possibility of the quickening into life of that latent maturer self that
+craves for existence in each one of us. It is to take, for better for
+worse, a more meagre form of life, destitute, not of happiness perhaps,
+but of those common joys and sorrows which most of all bind us in
+sympathy with our fellow-men. What marriage in itself is to the
+majority, the love of one fellow-creature, and one only, is to the few.
+To a few, happily a very few, there is only one hand that can minister
+among the pressure of the crowd. There was none other woman in the world
+for John, save only Di. Sayings common to vulgarity, profaned by every
+breach of promise case, can yet be true sometimes.
+
+"Di, Di, Di!" said John.
+
+He tried to recall her face, but he could not. When they were together
+he had not seen her; he had only felt her presence, only trembled at
+each slight movement of her hands. He always watched them when he was
+talking to her. He knew every movement of those strong, slender hands by
+heart. She had a little way of opening and shutting her left hand as she
+talked. He smiled even now as he thought of it. And she had a certain
+wave in her hair just above the ear, that was not the same over the
+other ear. But her face--no, he could not see her face.
+
+He tried again. They were sitting once again, he and she, not very near,
+nor very far apart, in the low entresol room at Overleigh. He could see
+her now. She was arranging the lilies of the valley, and he was saying
+to himself, as he watched her with his chin in his hands, "This is only
+the beginning. There will be many times like this, only dearer and
+sweeter than this."
+
+Many times! That deep conviction had proved as false as all the rest--as
+false as everything else which he had trusted.
+
+And all in a moment as he looked, as he remembered, was it endurance,
+was it principle, that seemed to snap?
+
+He set his teeth and ground his heel into the earth. Agony had come upon
+him. Passion, writhing in torment, rose gigantic without warning and
+seized him in a Titan grip. It was a duel to the death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John sat motionless in the solitude of the heather. The bird was silent.
+On either hand the level moors met the level sky. Lindo walked in and
+out in semi and total eclipse near at hand, now emerging life-size upon
+a hillock, now visible only as an erect travelling tail amid the
+heather. The sun came faintly out. There was a little speech of bees, a
+little quivering among the poised spears of the tall bleached grasses
+against the sky.
+
+Time passed.
+
+John's was not the easy faith which believes that in another world what
+has been given up in this will be restored a thousandfold. The hope of
+future reward had no more power to move him than the fear of future
+punishment. The heaven of rewards of which those speak who have
+authority, would be no heaven at all to many; a place from which the
+noblest would turn away. Love worthy of the name, even down here, gives
+all, asking nothing back.
+
+John did not try to define even to himself the faith by which he had
+lived so far; but as the veiled sun stooped near and nearer to the west,
+he began to see, as clearly as he saw the sword-grass shaking against
+the sky, that he was about to remain true to it, or be false to it for
+ever.
+
+Perhaps that faith was more than anything else a stern allegiance to the
+Giver of that law within the heart which independent natures ever
+recognize as the only true authority; which John had early elected to
+obey, which he had obeyed with ease, till now. He had been condemned by
+many as a freethinker; for to be obedient to the divine prompting has
+ever been stigmatized as lawlessness by those who are obedient to a
+written code. John had no code.
+
+Yet God, who made (if the tourists who cheaply move in flocks on beaten
+highways could only believe it) those solitary, isolated natures, knew
+what He was about. And to those to whom little human guidance is
+vouchsafed He adds courage, and that self-reliance which comes only of a
+deep-rooted faith in a God who will not keep silence, who will not
+leave the traveller journeying towards Him unpiloted upon a lonely
+shore, or ultimately suffer His least holy one to see corruption.
+
+John looked wildly round him. Even nature seemed to have turned against
+him. It spoke of peace when there was no peace. For nature has no power
+to mitigate the bitterness of that cup of self-surrender which even
+Christ Himself, beneath the kindred stars of still Gethsemane, prayed
+might pass from Him.
+
+John hid his convulsed face in his hands.
+
+The crises of life have their hour of loneliness and prostration, their
+agony and bloody sweat. That cup which may not pass, how ennobling it is
+to read of in the lives of others, how interesting to theorize upon in
+our own; how appalling in actual experience, when it is in our hands to
+drink or to refuse; refusing for ever with it, if we accept it not, the
+hand of Him who offers it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The solemn world of grey earth and sky waited. The light in the west
+waited. How much longer were they to wait? How much longer would this
+bowed figure sway itself to and fro?
+
+"I will do it!" said John suddenly, and with a harsh inarticulate cry he
+flung himself down on his face among the heather, clutching the soft
+earth; for the Hand of the God whom he would not deny was heavy on him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     "The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold
+     Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still.
+     They have forged our chains of being for good or ill."
+                                    MATHILDE BLIND.
+
+
+John was late. Mitty looked out several times to see if he were coming,
+and then put down the tea-cake to the fire.
+
+At last his step came slowly along the garret gallery, and Lindo, who
+approved of nursery tea, walked in first, his dignity somewhat impaired
+by a brier hanging from his back flounce.
+
+John saw the firelight through the open door, and the figure in the low
+chair waiting for him. She had heard him coming, and was getting
+stiffly up to make the tea.
+
+"Mitty, you should not wait for me," he said, sitting down in his own
+place by the fire.
+
+Would they let her keep the brass kettle and her silver teapot? Yes, no
+doubt they would; but somebody would have to ask. He supposed he should
+be that somebody. Everything she possessed had been bought by himself
+with other people's money.
+
+He let the tea last as long as possible. If Lindo had more than his
+share of tea-cake, no one was the wiser. At last Mitty cleared away, and
+sat down in the rocking-chair.
+
+"Don't light the candles, Mitty."
+
+"Why not, my dear? I can't be settin' with my hands before me, and holes
+in your socks a shame to be seen."
+
+John came and sat down on the floor beside her, and leaned his head
+against her.
+
+"Never mind the socks just now. There is something I want to talk to you
+about."
+
+He looked at the fire through the bars of the high nursery fender, and
+something in its glimmer, seen from so near the floor through the
+remembered pattern of the wires which he had lost sight of for twenty
+years, suddenly recalled the times when he had sat on the hearthrug, as
+he was sitting now, with his head against Mitty's knee, confiding to her
+what he would do when he was a man.
+
+"Do you remember, Mitty," he said, "how I used to tell you that when I
+grew up you should ride in a carriage, and have a gold brooch, and a
+clock that played a tune?"
+
+"I remember, my darling; and how, next time Charles went into York, you
+give him all you had, and half a crown it was, to buy me a brooch, and
+the silly staring fool went and spent it, and brought back that great
+thing with the mock stones in. And you was as pleased as pleased. Eh! I
+was angry with Charles for taking your bits of money, and all he said
+was, 'Well, Mrs. Emson, I went to a many shops, and I give five
+shillin's for it so as to get a big un.'"
+
+"I remember it," said John. "It was about the size of a small poultice.
+And so Charles paid half. Good old Charles! I seem to have been much
+deceived in my youth."
+
+His deep-set eyes watched the fire, watched the semblance of a little
+castle in the heart of the glow. Mitty was quite happy with her
+darling's head against her knee.
+
+"When the castle falls in I will tell her," said John to himself.
+
+But the fire had settled itself. The castle held. At last Mitty put out
+her hand, and gave it a poke; not with the brass poker, of course, but
+with a little black slave which did that polished aristocrat's work for
+it.
+
+"Mitty," said John, "I am not so rich now as when I was in pinafores;
+and even then, you see, the brooch was not bought with my own money.
+Charles gave half. I have never given you anything that was paid for
+with my own money. I have been spending other people's all my life."
+
+"Why, bless your dear heart!" said Mitty; "and who gave me my silver
+teapot, I should like to know, and the ivory workbox, and that very
+kettle a-staring you in the face, and the Wedgwood tea-things, and--and
+everything, if it was not you?"
+
+John did not answer. His face twitched.
+
+The bars of the fender were blurred. The brass kettle, instead of
+staring him in the face, melted quite away.
+
+Mitty stroked his head and face.
+
+"Cryin'!" she said--"my lamby cryin'!"
+
+"Not for myself, Mitty."
+
+"Who for, then? For that Miss Dinah?"
+
+"No, Mitty, for you. This is no home for you and me." He took her hard
+hand and rubbed his cheek against it. "It belongs to Colonel Tempest. I
+am not my father's son, Mitty."
+
+"Well, my precious," said Mitty, soothingly, in no wise discomposed by
+what John feared would have quite overwhelmed her, "and if your poor
+mammy did say as much to me when she was light-headed, when her pains
+was on her, there's no call to fret about that, seeing it's a long time
+ago, and her dead and all. Poor thing! I can see her now, with her
+pretty eyes and her little hands, and she'd put her head against me and
+say, 'Nursey' (Nursey I was to her), 'I'm not fit neither to live nor to
+die.' Many and many's the night I've roared to think of her after she
+was gone, when you was asleep in your crib. But there's no need for you
+to fret, my deary."
+
+John's heart contracted. Mitty knew also. Oh, if he might but have
+started life knowing what even Mitty knew!
+
+"They'd no business to marry her to Mr. Tempest," continued Mitty,
+shaking her head, "and she, poor thing, idolizing that black Lord Fane,
+as was her first cousin. It wasn't likely, after that, she'd settle to
+Mr. Tempest, who was as light as tow. It was against nature. She never
+took a bit of interest in him, nor him in her neither, that I could see.
+A hard man he was, too--a hard man. She sent for him when she was dying.
+She would not see him while there was any chance. 'Forgive me,' she
+says; she says it over and over, me holding her up. 'I wouldn't ask it
+if I was staying, but I'm doing the best I can by dying. It's not much
+to make up, but it's the best I can. And,' she says, 'don't think, Jack,
+as all women are bad like me. There's a many good ones as 'ull make you
+happy yet when I'm gone.' I can see him now, standing by her, looking
+past her out of the window with his face like a flint. 'I've known two
+false ones,' he says; and he went away without another word. And she
+says after a bit to me, 'I've always been frightened at the very thought
+of dying, but it's living I'm frightened of now.' Eh! Master John, your
+poor mammy! She did repent. And Mr. Tempest sent for me to the library
+after the funeral, and he says, 'Promise me, nurse, that you'll never
+repeat what your mistress said to me when she was not herself.' And he
+looked hard at me, and I promised. And I've never breathed it to any
+living soul, not to one I haven't, from that day to this."
+
+"I found it out three weeks ago," said John. "And as I am not Mr.
+Tempest's son, everything I have belongs by right to Colonel Tempest,
+the next heir, not to me. Overleigh is not mine. It never was mine."
+
+But Mitty could not be made to understand what his mother's frailty had
+to do with John. When at last she grasped the idea that John would make
+known the fact that he was not his father's son, she was simply
+incredulous that her lamb could do such a thing--could bring shame upon
+his own mother. No, whatever else he might do, he would never do that.
+Why, Mrs. Alcock would know; and friends as she was with Mrs. Alcock,
+and had been for years, such a word had never passed her lips. And the
+people in the village, and the trades-people, and Jones and Evans from
+York, who were putting up the new curtains,--everybody would know. Mitty
+became quite agitated. Surely, surely, he'd never tell against his poor
+mother in her grave.
+
+"Mitty," said John, forcing himself to repeat what it had been
+difficult enough to say once, "don't you see that I can't stay here and
+keep what is not mine? Nothing is mine if I am not Mr. Tempest's son. I
+ought never to have been called so. We must go away."
+
+But Mitty was perplexed.
+
+"Not to that great weary house in London," she said anxiously, "with
+every spot of water to carry up from the bottom?"
+
+"That is not mine either," said John in despair, rising to his feet and
+standing before her. "Oh, Mitty, try and understand. Nothing is
+mine--nothing, nothing, nothing; not even the clothes I have on. I am a
+beggar."
+
+Mitty looked at him in a dazed way. She could not understand, but she
+could believe. Her chin began to tremble.
+
+It was almost a relief to see at last the tears which he had dreaded
+from the first. "My lamb a beggar," she said over and over again; and
+she cried a little, but not much. Mitty was getting old, and she was not
+able to realize a change--a change so incomprehensible as this.
+
+"But we need not be unhappy," said John, kneeling down by her, and
+putting his arms round her. "We shall be together still. Wherever I go
+you will go with me. I don't know yet where it will be, but we shall
+have a little home together somewhere, just you and I; and you'll do my
+socks and handkerchiefs, won't you, Mitty? and"--John controlled his
+voice, but he hid his face in her lap that she might not see it--"we'll
+be so happy together." At the moment I think John would have given up
+heaven itself to make that hour smooth to Mitty. "And your cakes,
+Mitty," he went on hoarsely. "They are better than any one else's. You
+shall have a little kitchen, and you will make the cakes yourself,
+won't you? and the"--his voice stumbled heavily--"the rock buns."
+
+"My precious," said Mitty, sobbing, "don't you fret yourself! I can make
+a many things besides them; Albert puddings and moulds, and them little
+cheese straws, and a sight of things. There's a deal of work in my old
+hands yet. It's only the spring as has took the starch out of me. I
+always feel a sinking in the spring. Lord, my darling, the times and
+times again I've been settin' here just dithering with a mossel of
+crotchet, or idling over a bit of reading, and wishing you was having a
+set of nightshirts to make!"
+
+Love had found out the way. John had appealed to the right instinct.
+Mitty was already busying herself with a future in which she should
+minister to her child's comfort, and John saw, with a relief that was
+half a pang, that the calamity of his life held hardly any place in the
+heart that loved him so much.
+
+"I've a sight of things," continued Mitty, wiping her eyes. "Books and
+pictures and cushions put away. My precious shall not go short. And
+there's two pair of linen sheets as I bought with my own money, and
+piller-slips to match, and six silver teaspoons and one dessert. My lamb
+shall have things comfortable about him."
+
+She fell to communing with herself. John did not speak.
+
+"I'll leave my places tidy," said Mitty. "Tidy I didn't find 'em, but
+tidy I'll leave 'em. I can't go till after the spring cleaning, Master
+John. I'll never trust that Fanny to do the scrubbing unless I'm behind
+her. I caught her washing round the mats instead of under only last
+week."
+
+John felt unable to enter into the question of the spring cleaning.
+There was another silence.
+
+At last Mitty said defiantly, "And I shall take your morroccy shoes, and
+your little chair as I give you myself. I don't care what anybody says,
+I shall take 'em. And the old horse and the Noey's ark."
+
+"It will be all right," said John, getting slowly to his feet. "Nobody
+will want to have them, or anything of mine;" and he kissed her, and
+went out.
+
+He went to the library and sat down by the fire.
+
+The resolution and aspiration of a few hours ago--where were they now?
+He felt broken in body and soul.
+
+Lindo came in, nibbled John's elbow, and scrutinized the fire. John
+scratched him absently on the top of his back between the tufts.
+
+"Lindo," he said, "the world is a hard place to live in."
+
+But Lindo, bulging with an unusual allowance of tea-cake, and winnowing
+the air with an appreciative hind leg, did not think so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     "Et souvent au moment où l'on croyait tenir
+     Une espérance, on voit que c'est un souvenir."
+                                 VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+When Colonel Tempest lay in a precarious condition owing to the
+unexpected explosion of a revolver which he was taking to his gun-maker,
+and which he believed to be unloaded--when this fatality occurred, Mrs.
+Courtenay somewhat relaxed the stringency of her usual demeanour to him,
+and allowed his daughter to be with him constantly in the hospital to
+which he was first conveyed, and afterwards in his rooms in Brook Street
+when he was sufficiently convalescent to be conveyed thither.
+
+Colonel Tempest was a trying patient; in one sense he was not a patient
+at all; melting into querulous tears when denied a sardine on toast for
+which his soul thirsted, the application of which would infallibly have
+separated his soul from his body; and bemoaning continually, when
+consciousness was vouchsafed to him, the neglect of his children and the
+callousness of his friends. Di bore it with equanimity. It is only true
+accusations which one feels obliged to contradict. She did not love her
+father, and his continual appeals to her pity and filial devotion
+touched her but little. Colonel Tempest confided to his nurse in the
+night-watches that he was the parent of heartless children, and when Di
+took her place in the daytime, reviled the nurse's greed, who, whether
+he was suffering or not, could eat a large meal in the middle of the
+night.
+
+"I hate nurses," he would say. "Your poor mother had such a horrid nurse
+when Archie was born. I could not bear her, always making difficulties
+and restrictions, and locking the door, and then complaining to the
+doctor because I rattled the lock. I urged your mother to part with her
+whenever she was not in the room. But she only cried, and said she could
+not do without her, and that she was kind to her. That was your mother
+all over. She always sided against me. I must say she knew the value of
+tears, did your poor mother. She cried herself into hysterics when I
+rang the front door bell at four in the morning because I had gone out
+without a latch-key. I suppose she expected me to sit all night on the
+step. And first the nurse and then the doctor spoke to me about
+agitating her, and said it was doing her harm; so I just walked
+straight out of the house, and never set foot in it again for a month
+till they had both cleared out. They overreached themselves that time."
+
+Archie, who looked in once a day for the space of ten seconds, came in
+for the largest share of Colonel Tempest's reproaches.
+
+"I don't like sick people," that young gentleman was wont to remark.
+"Don't understand 'em. No use. Nursing not in my line. Better out of the
+way."
+
+So, with the consideration of his kind, he was so good as to keep out of
+it, while Colonel Tempest wept salt tears into his already too salt
+beef-tea (it was always too salt or not salt enough), and remarked with
+bitterness that he could have fancied a sardine, and that other people's
+sons nursed their parents when they were at death's door. Young
+Grandcourt had never left _his_ father's bedside for three weeks when
+he had pneumonia; but Archie, it seemed, was different.
+
+"My children are not much comfort to me," he told the doctor as
+regularly as he put out his tongue.
+
+"John might have come," he said one day to Di. "He got out of it by
+sending a cheque, but I think he might have taken the trouble just to
+come and see whether I was alive or dead."
+
+"John is ill himself," said Di.
+
+"John is always ill," said Colonel Tempest, fretfully, with the
+half-memory of convalescence--"always ailing and coddling himself; and
+yet he has twice my physique. John grows coarse-looking--very coarse. I
+fancy he is a large eater. I remember he was ill in the summer. I went
+to see him. I was always sitting with him; and there did not seem to be
+much the matter with him. I think he gives way."
+
+"Perhaps it is a family failing," said Di, who was beginning to discover
+what a continual bottling up and corking down of effervescent irritation
+is comprised under the name of patience.
+
+How many weeks was it after Di's return to London when a cloud no larger
+than a man's hand arose on the clear horizon of that secret happiness
+which no amount of querulousness on Colonel Tempest's part could
+effectually dim? It was a very small cloud. It took the shape of a card
+with John's name on it, who had come to Brook Street to inquire after
+his uncle.
+
+"He is in London. He will call this afternoon," said Di to herself; and
+as Colonel Tempest happened to be too sleepy to wish to be read to, she
+left him early in the afternoon, and hurried home. And she and Mrs.
+Courtenay sat indoors all that afternoon, though they had been lent a
+carriage, and they waited to make tea till after the time; and whenever
+the door bell rang, Mrs. Courtenay's hands shook quite as much as Di's.
+And aimless, foolish persons called, but John did not call.
+
+"He is ill," said Mrs. Courtenay in the dusk, "or he has been prevented
+coming. There is some reason. He will write."
+
+"Yes," said Di, "he will come when he can." But nevertheless a little
+shiver of doubt crept into her heart for the first time. "If I had been
+in his place," she said to herself, "I should have come ill or well, and
+I should _not_ have been prevented."
+
+She put the thought aside instantly as unreasonable, but the shy dread
+she had previously felt of meeting him changed to a restless longing
+just to see him, just to be reassured.
+
+To be loved by one we love is, after all, so incredible a revelation
+that it is not wonderful that human nature seeks after a sign. Only a
+great self-esteem finds love easy to believe in.
+
+The days passed, and linked themselves to weeks. Was it fancy, or did
+Mrs. Courtenay become graver day by day? and Di remembered with
+misgiving a certain note which she had written to John the morning she
+left Overleigh. The little cloud grew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One afternoon Di came in rather later than usual, and after a glance
+round the room, which had become habitual to her, sat down by her
+grandmother, and poured out tea.
+
+"Any callers, granny?"
+
+"One--Archie."
+
+Di sighed. Coming home had always the possibility in it of finding some
+one sitting in the drawing-room, or a note on the hall table. Yet
+neither possibility happened.
+
+"Archie came to say that the doctor thinks your father does not gain
+ground, and that he might be moved to the seaside with advantage. He
+wanted to know whether you could go with him. He can't get leave himself
+for more than a couple of days. I said I would allow you to do so, if he
+took your father down himself, and got him settled. He can do that in
+two days, and he ought to take his share. He has left everything to you
+so far. He mentioned," continued Mrs. Courtenay with an effort, "that he
+had met John at the Carlton yesterday, and that he was all right, and
+able to go about again as usual. He went back to Overleigh to-day."
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"What do you think, granny?" said Di at last.
+
+"How long is it since you were at Overleigh?"
+
+"Two months."
+
+"When you were there did you allow John to see that you had changed your
+mind, or were you friendly with him, as you used to be? Nothing
+discourages men so much as that."
+
+"No; I tried to be, but I could not. I don't know what I was, except
+very uncomfortable."
+
+"Had he any real opportunity of speaking to you without interruption?"
+
+Di remembered the half-hour in the entresol sitting-room. It had never
+occurred to her till that moment that certainly, if he had wished to do
+so, he could have spoken to her then.
+
+"Yes," she said, "he had; and," she added, "I am sure he knew I liked
+him. If he did not know it then, I am quite sure he knows it now. I
+wrote a note."
+
+"What kind of note?"
+
+"Oh, granny, that is just it. I don't know what kind it was. It seemed
+natural at the time. I can't remember exactly what I said. I've tried
+to, often. It was written in such a hurry, for you telegraphed for me,
+and I had been up all night waiting to hear whether he was to live or
+die, and it was so dreadful to have to go away without a word."
+
+Mrs. Courtenay leaned back in her chair. She seemed tired.
+
+"Tell me what you think," said Di again.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Courtenay, "that if John had been seriously
+attached to you, he would either have come, or have answered your letter
+by this time. I am afraid we have made a mistake."
+
+Di did not answer. The world was crumbling down around her.
+
+"I may be making one now," said Mrs. Courtenay; "but it appears to me he
+has had every opportunity given him, and he has made no use of them.
+Men worth their salt _make_ their opportunities, but if they don't even
+take them when they are ready-made to their hand, they cannot be in
+earnest. Women don't realize what a hateful position a man is in who is
+deeply in love, and who has no knowledge of whether it is returned or
+not. He won't remain in it any longer than he can help."
+
+"John is not in that position," said Di, colouring painfully. "Granny,
+why don't you reproach me for writing that letter?"
+
+"Because, my dear, though I regret it more than I can say, I should have
+done the same in your place."
+
+"And--and what would you do _now_ in my place?"
+
+"This," said Mrs. Courtenay. "You cannot dismiss the subject from your
+mind, but whenever it comes into your thoughts, hold steadily before
+you the one fact that he is certainly aware you are attached to him, and
+he has not acted on that knowledge."
+
+"They say men don't care for anything when once they know they can have
+it," said Di hoarsely, pride wringing the words out of her. "Perhaps
+John is like that. He knows I--am only waiting to be asked."
+
+"Fools say many things," returned Mrs. Courtenay. "That is about as true
+as that women don't care for their children when they get them. A few
+unnatural ones don't; the others do. I have seen much trouble caused by
+love affairs. After middle life most people decry them, especially those
+who have had superficial ones themselves; for there is seldom any love
+at all in the mutual attraction of two young people, and the elders know
+very well that if it is judiciously checked it can also be judiciously
+replaced by something else. But a real love which comes to nothing is
+more like the death of an only child than anything else. It _is_ a
+death. The great thing is to regard it so. I have known women go on year
+after year waiting, as we have been doing during the last two months,
+refusing to believe in its death; believing, instead, in some
+misunderstanding; building up theories to account for alienation;
+clinging to the idea that things might have turned out differently if
+only So-and-so had been more tactful, if they had not refused a certain
+invitation, if something they had said which might yet be explained had
+not been misconstrued. And all the time there is no misunderstanding, no
+need of explanation. The position is simple enough. No man is daunted by
+such things except in women's imaginations. What men want they will try
+to obtain, unless there is some positive bar, such as poverty. And if
+they don't try, remember the inference is _sure_, that they don't
+really want it."
+
+Di did not answer. Her face had taken a set look, which for the first
+time reminded Mrs. Courtenay of her mother. She had often seen the other
+Diana look like that.
+
+"My child," she said, stretching out her soft old hand, and laying it on
+the cold clenched one, "a death even of what is dearest to us, and a
+funeral and a headstone to mark the place, hard as it is, is as nothing
+compared to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging
+about a corpse. I have seen that not once nor twice. I want to save you
+from that."
+
+Di laid her face for a moment on the kind hand.
+
+"I will bury my dead," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     "And now we believe in evil
+       Where once we believed in good.
+     The world, the flesh, and the devil
+       Are easily understood."
+                            GORDON.
+
+
+It seems a pity that our human destinies are too often so constituted
+that with our own hands we may annul in one hour--our hour of
+weakness--the long, slow work of our strength; annul the self-conquest
+and the renunciation of our best years. We ought to be thankful when the
+gate of the irrevocable closes behind us, and the power to defeat
+ourselves is at last taken from us. For he who has once solemnly and
+with conviction renounced, and then, for no new cause, has taken to
+himself again that which he renounced, has broken the mainspring of his
+life.
+
+John went early the following morning to London, for he had business
+with three men, and he could not rest till he had seen them, and had
+shut that gate upon himself for ever.
+
+So early had he started that it was barely midday when he reached Lord
+Frederick's chambers. The valet told him that his lordship was still in
+bed, and could see no one; but John went up to his bedroom, and knocked
+at the door.
+
+"It is I--John Tempest," he said, and went in.
+
+Lord Frederick was sitting up in bed, sallow and shrunk like a mummy, in
+a blue watered-silk dressing-gown. His thin hair was brushed up into a
+crest on the top of his head. The bed was littered with newspapers and
+letters. There was a tray before him, and he was in the act of chipping
+an egg as John came in.
+
+He raised his eyebrows and looked first with surprised displeasure, and
+then with attention, at his visitor.
+
+"Good morning," he said; and he went on tapping his egg. "Ah," he said,
+shaking his head, "hard-boiled again!"
+
+John looked at him as a plague-stricken man might look at the carcase of
+some obscene animal found rotting in his water-spring.
+
+Lord Frederick's varied experiences had made him familiar with the
+premonitory symptoms of those outbursts of anger and distress which he
+designated under the all-embracing term of "scenes." He felt idly
+curious to know what this man with his fierce white face had to say to
+him.
+
+"Oblige me by sitting down," he said; "you are in my light."
+
+"I have been reading my mother's letters to you," said John, still
+standing in the middle of the room, and stammering in his speech. He had
+not reckoned for the blind paroxysm of rage which had sprung up at the
+mere sight of Lord Frederick, and was spinning him like a leaf in a
+whirlwind.
+
+"Indeed!" said Lord Frederick, raising his eyebrows, and carefully
+taking the shell off his egg. "I don't care about reading old letters
+myself, especially the private correspondence of other people; but
+tastes differ. You do, it seems. I had imagined the particular letters
+you allude to had been burnt."
+
+"My mother intended to burn them."
+
+"It would certainly have been wiser to do so, but probably for that
+reason they remained undestroyed. From time immemorial womankind has
+shown a marked repugnance to the dictates of common sense."
+
+"I have burnt them."
+
+"Just so," said Lord Frederick, helping himself to salt. "I commend your
+prudence. Had you burnt them unread, I should have been able to commend
+your sense of honour also."
+
+"What do you know about honour?" said John.
+
+The two men looked hard at each other.
+
+"That remark," said Lord Frederick, joining the ends of his fingers and
+half shutting his eyes, "is a direct insult. To insult a man with whom
+you are not in a position to quarrel is, in my opinion, John, an error
+of judgment. We will consider it one, and as such I will let it pass.
+The letters, I presume, contained nothing of which you were not already
+aware?"
+
+"Only the fact that I am your illegitimate son."
+
+"I deplore your coarseness of expression. You certainly have not
+inherited it from me. But, my dear Galahad, it is impossible that even
+your youth and innocence should not have known of my _tendresse_ for
+your mother."
+
+"Is that the last new name for adultery?" said John huskily, advancing a
+step nearer the bed. His face was livid. His eyes burned. He held his
+hands clenched lest they should rush out and wrench away all semblance
+of life and humanity from that figure in the watered-silk dressing-gown.
+
+Lord Frederick lay back on his pillows, and looked at him steadily. He
+was without fear, but it appeared to him that he was about to die. The
+laws of his country, of conscience and of principle, all the protection
+that envelops life, seemed to have receded from him, to have slipped
+away into the next room, or downstairs with the valet. They would come
+back, no doubt, in time, but they might be a little late, as far as he
+was concerned.
+
+"He has strong hands, like mine," he said to himself, his pale,
+unflinching eyes fixed upon his son's; while a remembrance slid through
+his mind of how once, years ago, he had choked the life out of a mastiff
+which had turned on him, and how long the heavy brute had taken to die.
+
+"Do not spill the coffee," he said quietly, after a moment.
+
+John started violently, and wheeled away from him like a man regaining
+consciousness on the brink of an abyss. Lord Frederick put out his lean
+hand, and went on with his breakfast.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"John," said Lord Frederick at last, not without a certain dignity,
+"the world is as it is. We did not make it, and we are not responsible
+for it. If there is any one who set it going, it is his own look out.
+Reproach _him_, if you can find him. All we have to do is to live in it.
+And we can't live in it, I tell you we can't exist in it, with any
+comfort until we realize that it is rotten to the core."
+
+John was leaning against the window-sill shaking like a reed. It seemed
+to him that for one awful moment he had been in hell.
+
+"I do not pretend to be better than other men," continued Lord
+Frederick. "Men and women are men and women; and if you persist in
+thinking them angels, especially the latter, you will pay for your
+mistake."
+
+"I am paying," said John.
+
+"Possibly. You seem to have sustained a shock. It is incredible to me
+that you did not know beforehand what the letters told you.
+Wedding-rings don't make a greater resemblance between father and son
+than there is between you and me."
+
+Lord Frederick looked at the stooping figure of the young man, leaning
+spent and motionless against the window, his arms hanging by his sides.
+He held what he called his prudishness in contempt, but he respected an
+element in him which he would have termed "grit."
+
+"You are stronger built than I am, John," he said, with a touch of
+pride, "and wider in the chest. Come, bygones are bygones. Shake hands."
+
+"I can't," said John. "I don't know that I could on my account, but
+anyhow not on _hers_."
+
+"H'm! And so this was the information which you rushed in without leave
+to spring upon me?"
+
+"It was, together with the fact that of course I withdraw in favour of
+Colonel Tempest, the heir at law. I am going on to him from here."
+
+Lord Frederick reared himself slowly in his bed, his brown hands
+clutching the bedclothes like eagles' talons.
+
+"You are going to own your----"
+
+"_My_ shame--yes; not yours. You need not be alarmed. Your name shall
+not be brought in. If I take the name of Fane, it will only be because
+it was my mother's."
+
+"But you said you had burned the letters."
+
+"I have. I don't see what difference that makes. The fact that they are
+burnt does not alter the fact that I am--nobody, and he is the legal
+heir."
+
+"And you mean to tell him so?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"To commit suicide?"
+
+"Social suicide--yes."
+
+"Fool!" said Lord Frederick, in a voice which lost none of its force
+because it was barely above a whisper.
+
+John did not answer.
+
+"Leave the room," said the outraged parent, turning his face to the
+wall, the bedclothes and the tray trembling exceedingly. "I will have
+nothing more to do with you. You need not come to me when you are
+penniless. Do you hear? I disown you. Leave me. I will never speak to
+you again."
+
+"I hope to God you never will," said John; and he took up his hat and
+went out.
+
+He had settled his account with the first of the three people whom he
+had come to London to see. From Lord Frederick's chambers he went
+straight to Colonel Tempest's lodgings in Brook Street. But Colonel
+Tempest had that morning departed with his son to Brighton, and John,
+momentarily thrown off his line of action by that simple occurrence,
+stared blankly at the landlady, and then went to his club and sat down
+to write to him. There was no question of waiting. Like a man walking
+across Niagara on a tight rope, it was no time to think, to hesitate, to
+look round. John kept his eyes riveted to one point, and shut his ears
+to the roar of the torrent below him, in which a moment's giddiness
+would engulf him.
+
+It was afternoon by this time. As he sat writing at a table in one of
+the bay windows, a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Lord Hemsworth.
+They had not met since the night of the ice carnival. Lord Hemsworth's
+face had quite lost its boyish expression.
+
+"I hope you are better, Tempest," he said, with obvious constraint,
+looking narrowly at him. Could Di's accepted lover wear so grey and
+stern a look as this?
+
+John replied that he was well; and then, with sudden recollection of
+Mitty's account of Lord Hemsworth's conduct during that memorable night,
+began to thank him, and stopped short.
+
+The room was empty.
+
+"It was on _her_ account," said Lord Hemsworth.
+
+John did not answer. It was that conviction which had pulled him up.
+
+Lord Hemsworth waited some time for John to speak, and then he said--
+
+"You know about me, Tempest, and why I was on the ice that night. Well,
+I have kept out of the way for three months under the belief that--I
+should hear any day that---- I am not such a fool as to pit myself
+against you--I don't want to be a nuisance to---- But it's three months.
+For God's sake tell me; are you on or are you not?"
+
+"I am not," said John.
+
+"Then I will try my luck," said the other.
+
+He went out, and John knew that he had gone to try it there and then;
+and sat motionless, with his hand across his mouth and his unfinished
+letter before him, until the servant came to close the shutters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     "We live together years and years,
+       And leave unsounded still
+     Each other's springs of hopes and fears,
+       Each other's depths of will."
+                             LORD HOUGHTON.
+
+
+But still more bewildering is the way in which we live years and years
+with ourselves in an entire ignorance of the powers that lie dormant
+beneath the surface of character. The day comes when vital forces of
+which we know nothing arise within us, and break like glass the even
+tenor of our lives. The quiet hours, the regulated thoughts, the
+peaceful aspiration after things but little set above us, where are
+they? The angel with the sword drives us out of our Eden to shiver in
+the wilderness of an entirely changed existence, unrecognizable by
+ourselves, though perhaps lived in the same external groove, the same
+divisions of time, among the same faces as before.
+
+Day succeeded day in Di's life, each day adding one more stone to the
+prison in which it seemed as if an inexorable hand were walling her up.
+
+"I will not give in. I will turn my mind to other things," she said to
+herself. And--there were no other things. All lesser lights were blown
+out. The heart, when it is swept into the grasp of a great love, is
+ruthlessly torn from the hundred minute ties and interests that
+heretofore held it to life. The little fibres and tendrils of affections
+which have gradually grown round certain objects are snapped off from
+the roots. They cease to exist. The pang of love is that there is no
+escape from it. It has the same tension as sleeplessness.
+
+Di struggled and was not defeated; but some victories are as sad as
+defeats. During the struggle she lost something--what was it--that had
+been to many her greatest charm? Women were unanimous in deploring how
+she had "gone off." There was a thinness in her cheek, and a blue line
+under her deep eyes. Her beauty remained, but it was not the same
+beauty. Mrs. Courtenay noticed with a pang that she was growing like her
+mother.
+
+Easter came, and with it the wedding of Miss Crupps and the Honourable
+Augustus Lumley, youngest son of Lord Mortgage. Miss Crupps' young heart
+had long inclined towards Mr. Lumley; but on the occasion of seeing him
+blacked as a Christy Minstrel, she had finally succumbed into a state
+of giggling admiration, which plainly showed the state of her
+affections. So he cut the word "yes" out of a newspaper, and told her
+that was what she was to say to him, and amid a series of delighted
+cackles they were engaged. Di went to the wedding, looking so pale that
+it was whispered that Mr. Lumley and his tambourine had won her heart as
+well as that of his adoring bride.
+
+On a sunny afternoon shortly afterwards, Di was sitting alone indoors,
+her grandmother having gone out driving with a friend. She told herself
+that she ought to go out, but she remained sitting with her hands in her
+lap. Every duty, every tiny decision, every small household matter, had
+become of late an intolerable burden. Even to put a handful of flowers
+into water required an effort of will which it was irksome to make.
+
+She had stayed in to make an alteration in the gown she was to wear
+that night at the Speaker's. As she looked at the card to make sure it
+was the right evening, she remembered that it was at the Speaker's she
+had first met John, just a year ago. One year. How absurd! Five, ten,
+fifteen! She tried to recollect what her life could have been like
+before he had come into it; but it seemed to start from that point, and
+to have had no significance before.
+
+"I must go out," she said again; and at that moment the door bell rang,
+and although Mrs. Courtenay was out, some one was admitted. The door
+opened, and Lord Hemsworth was announced.
+
+There is, but men are fortunately not in a position to be aware of it, a
+lamentable uniformity in their manner of opening up certain subjects. Di
+knew in a moment from previous experience what he had come for. He
+wondered, as he stumbled through a labyrinth of platitudes about the
+weather, how he could broach the subject without alarming her. He did
+not know that he had done so by his manner of coming into the room, and
+that he had been refused before he had finished shaking hands.
+
+Di was horribly sorry for him while he talked about--whatever he did
+talk about. Neither noticed what it was at the time, or remembered it
+afterwards. She was grateful to him for not alluding even in the most
+distant manner to their last meeting. She remembered that she had clung
+to him, and that he had called her by her Christian name, but she was
+too callous to be ashamed at the recollection. It was as nothing
+compared to another humiliation which had come upon her a little later.
+
+"It is no good beating about the bush," said Lord Hemsworth at last,
+after he had beaten it till there was, so to speak, nothing left of it.
+"I have come up to London for one thing, and I have come here for one
+thing, which is--to ask you to marry me. Don't speak--don't say anything
+just for a moment," he continued hurriedly, raising his hand as if to
+ward off a rebuff. "For God's sake don't stop me. I've kept it in so
+long I must say it, and you must hear me."
+
+She let him say it. And he got it out with stumbling and difficulty and
+long gaps between--got out in shaking commonplaces a tithe of the love
+he had for her. And all the time Di thought if it might only have been
+some one else who was uttering those halting words! (I wonder how many
+men have proposed and been accepted while the woman has said to herself,
+"If it had only been some one else!")
+
+Despair at his inability to express himself, and at her silence, seized
+him: as if it mattered a pin how he expressed himself if she had been
+willing to listen.
+
+"If you understood," he said over and over again, with the monotonous
+reiteration of a piano-tuner, "you would not refuse me. I know you are
+going to, but if only you understood you would not. You would not have
+the heart. It's--it's just everything to me." And Lord Hemsworth--oh,
+bathos of modern life!--looked into his hat.
+
+"Lord Hemsworth," said Di, "have I ever given you any encouragement?"
+
+"None," he replied. "People might think you had, but you never did. I
+knew better. I never misunderstood you. I know you don't care a straw
+about me; but--oh, Di, you have not your equal in the world. There's no
+woman to compare with you. I don't see how you could care for any one
+like me. Of course you don't. I would not expect it. But if--if you
+would only marry me--I would be content with very little. I've looked
+at it all round. I would be content with--very little."
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+What woman whose love has been slighted can easily reject a great
+devotion?
+
+"I think," said Di, after several false starts to speak, "that if I only
+considered myself I would marry you; but there is the happiness of one
+other person to think of--_yours_."
+
+"I can't have any apart from you."
+
+"You would have none with me. If it is miserable to care for any one who
+is indifferent, it would be a thousand times more miserable to be
+married to that person."
+
+"Not if it were you."
+
+"Yes, if it were I."
+
+"I would take the risk," said Lord Hemsworth, who held, in common with
+most men, the rooted conviction that a woman will become attached to
+any husband, however little she cares for her lover. It is precisely
+this conviction which makes the average marriages of the present day
+such mediocre affairs; which serves to place worldly or facile women, or
+those whose affections have never been called out, at the head of so
+many homes; as the mothers of the new generation from which we hope so
+much.
+
+"I would take any risk," repeated Lord Hemsworth, doggedly. "I would
+rather be unhappy with you than happy with any one else."
+
+"You think so now," said Di; "but the time would come when you would see
+that I had cut you off from the best thing in the world--from the love
+of a woman who would care for you as much as you do for me."
+
+"I don't want her. I want you."
+
+"I cannot marry you."
+
+Lord Hemsworth clutched blindly at the arms of the chair.
+
+"I would wait any time."
+
+Di shook her head.
+
+"Any time," he stammered. "Go away for a year, and--come back."
+
+"It would be no good."
+
+Then he lost his head.
+
+"So long as you don't care for any one else," he said incoherently. "I
+thought at the carnival--that is why I have kept out of the way--but I
+met Tempest to-day at the Carlton, and--I asked him straight out, and he
+said there was nothing between you and him. I suppose you have refused
+him, like the rest of us. Oh, my God, Di, they say you have no heart!
+But it isn't true, is it? Don't refuse me. Don't make me live without
+you. I've tried for three months"--and Lord Hemsworth's face
+worked--"and if you knew what it was like, you wouldn't send me back to
+it."
+
+Every vestige of colour had faded from Di's face at the mention of John.
+
+"I don't care enough for you to marry you," she said, pitiless in her
+great pity. "I wish I did, but--I don't."
+
+"Do you care for any one else?"
+
+Di saw that nothing short of the truth would wrest his persistence from
+its object.
+
+"Yes, I do," she said passionately, trembling from head to foot. "For
+some one who does not care for me. You and I are both in the same
+position. Do you see now how useless it is to talk of this any longer?"
+
+Both had risen to their feet. Lord Hemsworth looked at Di's white
+convulsed face, and his own became as ashen. He saw at last that he had
+no more chance of marrying her than if she were lying at his feet in
+her coffin. Constancy, which can compass many things, avails nought
+sometimes.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, holding out his hand to go.
+
+"I think I ought to beg yours," she said brokenly, while their hands
+clasped tightly each in each. "I never meant to make you as--unhappy
+as--as I am myself, but yet I have."
+
+They looked at each other with tears in their eyes.
+
+"It does not matter," said Lord Hemsworth, hoarsely. "I shall be all
+right--it's you--I think of. Don't stand--mustn't stand--you're too
+tired. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Di flung herself down on her face on the sofa as the door closed. She
+had forgotten Lord Hemsworth's existence the moment after he had left
+the room. _John had told him that there was nothing between her and_
+_himself._ John had told him that. John had said that. A cry escaped
+her, and she strangled it in the cushion.
+
+Hope does not always die when we imagine it does. It is subject to long
+trances. The hope which she had thought dead was only giving up the
+ghost now. "Chaque espérance est un oeuf d'où peut sortir un serpent au
+lieu d'une colombe." Out of that frail shell of a cherished hope lying
+broken before her the serpent had crept at last. It moved, it grew
+before her eyes.
+
+     "Slighted love is sair to bide."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     "We met, hand to hand,
+       We clasped hands close and fast,
+     As close as oak and ivy stand;
+       But it is past."
+                      CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
+
+     "Half false, half fair, all feeble."
+                          SWINBURNE.
+
+
+When John roused himself from the long stupor into which he had fallen
+after Lord Hemsworth's departure, he put his finished letter to Colonel
+Tempest into an envelope, and then remembered with annoyance that he did
+not know how to address it. When the landlady in Brook Street had told
+him that Colonel and Captain Tempest had gone to Brighton that morning,
+he had been too much taken aback at the moment to think of asking for
+their address. He was too much exhausted in mind and body to go back to
+the lodgings for it immediately. He wrote a second letter, this time to
+his lawyer, and then, conscious of the state of his body by the shaking
+hand and clumsy, tardy brain which made of a short and explicit
+statement so lengthy an affair, he mechanically changed his clothes,
+dined, and sat watching the smoke of his cigar.
+
+Presently, with food and rest, the apathy into which exhaustion had
+plunged him lifted, and the restlessness of a tortured mind returned. He
+had only as yet seen one of the three men whom he had come to London to
+interview, namely, Lord Frederick. Colonel Tempest, the second, was out
+of town; but probably the third, Lord ----, the minister, was not. It
+was close on ten o'clock. He should probably find him in his private
+room in the House.
+
+John flung away his cigar, and was in a few minutes spinning towards the
+Houses of Parliament in a hansom. He had not thought much about it till
+now, but as he turned in at the gates the lines of the great buildings
+suddenly brought back to him the remembrance of his own ambition, and of
+the splendid career that had seemed to be opening before him when last
+he had passed those gates; which had fallen at a single touch like a
+house of cards--a house built with Fortune's cards.
+
+There was a _queue_ of carriages at the Speaker's entrance. A party was
+evidently going on there. John went to the House and inquired for
+Lord ----. He was not there. Perhaps he was at the Speaker's reception.
+John remembered, or thought he remembered, that he had a card for it,
+and went on there. His mind was set on finding Lord ----.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+History repeats itself, and so does our little private history. Only
+when the same thing happens it finds us changed, and we look back at
+what we were last time, and remember our old young self with wonder. Was
+that indeed I?
+
+Possibly to some an evening party may appear a small event, but to Di,
+as she stood in the same crowd as last year, in the same pictured rooms,
+it seemed to her that her whole life had turned on the pivot of that one
+evening a year ago.
+
+The lights glared too much now. The babel dazed her. Noises had become
+sharp swords of late. Every one talked too loud. She chatted and smiled,
+and vaguely wondered that her friends recognized her. "I am not the same
+person," she said to herself, "but no one seems to see any difference."
+
+Presently she found herself near the same arched window where she had
+stood with John last year. She moved for a moment to it and looked out.
+There was a mist across the river. The lights struggled through blurred
+and feeble. It had been clear last year. She turned and went on talking,
+of she knew not what, to a very young man at her elbow, who was making
+laborious efforts to get on with her.
+
+Her eyes looked back from the recess across the sea of faces and
+fringes, and bald and close-cropped heads. The men who were not John,
+but yet had a momentary resemblance to him, were the only people she
+distinctly saw. Tall fair men were beginning to complain of her
+unrecognizing manner.
+
+Yes, history repeats itself.
+
+Among the crowd in the distance she suddenly saw him. John's rugged
+profile and square head were easy to recognize. _He had said there was
+nothing between them._ Their last meeting rushed back upon her with a
+scathing recollection of how she had held him in her arms and pressed
+her face to his. Shame scorched her inmost soul.
+
+She turned towards her companion with fuller attention than what she had
+previously accorded him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As John walked through the rooms scanning the crowd, the possibility of
+meeting Di did not strike him. With a frightful clutch of the heart he
+caught sight of her. A man who instantly aroused his animosity was
+talking eagerly to her. Something in her appearance startled him. Was it
+the colour of her gown that made her look so pale, the intense light
+that gave her calm dignified face that peculiar worn expression? She
+had a faint fixed smile as she talked that John did not recognize, and
+that, why he knew not, cut him to the quick.
+
+Was this Di? Could this be Di?
+
+He knew she had seen him. He hesitated a moment and then went towards
+her. She received him without any change of countenance. The fixed smile
+was still on her lips as he spoke to her, but the lips had whitened.
+Their eyes met for a moment. Oh! what had happened to Di's lovely eyes
+that used to be so grave and gay?
+
+He stammered something--said he was looking for some one--and passed on.
+She turned to speak to some one else as he did so. He strangled the
+nameless emotion which was choking him, and made his way into the next
+room. He had a vague consciousness of being spoken to, and of making
+herculean efforts to grind out answers, and then of pouncing on the
+secretary of the man he was looking for, who told him his chief had
+suddenly and unexpectedly started for Paris that afternoon on affairs of
+importance.
+
+John mechanically noted down his address in Paris and left the house.
+
+The necessity of remembering where his feet were taking him recalled him
+somewhat to himself. He pulled himself together, and slackened his pace.
+
+"I will go to Paris by the night express," he said to himself, the
+feverish longing for action increasing upon him as this new obstacle met
+him. He dared not remain in London. He knew for a certainty that if he
+did he should go and see Di. Neither could he write to Lord ---- all
+that he must tell him, or put into black and white the favour he had to
+ask of him--the first favour John had ever needed to ask, namely, to be
+helped by means of Lord ----'s interest to some post in which he could
+for the moment support himself and Mitty.
+
+As he turned up St. James's Street, he remembered with irritation that
+he had not yet procured Colonel Tempest's and Archie's address. While he
+hesitated whether to go on, late as it was, to Brook Street for it, he
+remembered that he could probably obtain it much nearer at hand, namely,
+at Archie's rooms in Piccadilly. Archie, who was a person of much pink
+and monogrammed correspondence, would probably have left his address
+behind him, stuck in the glass of the mantelpiece, as his manner was.
+The latch-key he had lent John in the autumn, when John had made use of
+his rooms, was still on his chain. He had forgotten to return it. He let
+himself in, went upstairs to the second floor, and opened the door of
+the little sitting-room.
+
+"Here you are at last," said a woman's voice.
+
+He went in quickly and shut the door behind him.
+
+A small woman in shimmering evening dress, with diamonds in her hair,
+came towards him, and stopped short with a little scream.
+
+It was Madeleine.
+
+He looked at her in silence, standing with his back to the door. The
+smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to burn her, for she shrank away to
+the further end of the room. John observed that there was a fire and
+lamps, and knit his brows.
+
+Some persons are unable to perceive when explanations are useless.
+Madeleine began one--something about Archie's difficulties, money, etc.;
+but John cut her short.
+
+"You are not accountable to me for your actions," he said. "Keep your
+explanations for your husband."
+
+He looked again with perplexity at the fire and the lamps. He knew
+Archie had gone that morning on three days' leave to Brighton with his
+father.
+
+"Let me go," she said, whimpering. "I won't stay here to be thought ill
+of, to have evil imputed to me."
+
+"You will answer one question first," said John.
+
+"You impute evil to me--I know you do," said Madeleine, beginning to
+cry; "but it is your own coarse mind that sees wickedness in
+everything."
+
+"Possibly," said John. "When do you expect Archie?"
+
+"Any moment. I wish he was here, that he might tell you----"
+
+"Thank you, that will do. You can go now."
+
+He opened the door. She drew a long cloak over her shoulders and passed
+him without speaking, looking like what she was--one of that class whose
+very existence she professed to ignore, but whose ranks she had
+virtually joined when she announced her engagement to Sir Henry in the
+_Morning Post_. Perhaps, inasmuch as that, untempted, she had sold
+herself for diamonds and position, instead of, under strong temptation,
+for the bare necessities of life like her poorer sisters, she was more
+degraded than they; but fortunately for her, and many others in our
+midst, society upheld her.
+
+John looked after her and then followed her. There was not a soul on the
+common staircase or in the hall. He passed out just behind her, and they
+were in the street together.
+
+"Take my arm," he said, and she took it mechanically.
+
+He signalled a four-wheeler and helped her into it.
+
+"Where do you wish to go?" he said.
+
+"I don't know," she said feebly, apparently too much scared to remember
+what her arrangements had been.
+
+John considered a moment.
+
+"Where is Sir Henry?"
+
+"Dining at Woolwich."
+
+"Can't you go home?"
+
+"No, no. It is much too early. I'm dressed for--I said I was going
+to ----, and I have left there already, and the carriage is waiting there
+still."
+
+"You must go back there," said John. "Get your carriage and go home in
+it."
+
+He gave the cabman the address and paid him. Then he returned to the cab
+door.
+
+"Lady Verelst," he said less sternly, "believe me--Archie is not worth
+it."
+
+"You don't understand," she tried to say, with an assumption of injured
+dignity. "It was only that I----"
+
+"He is not worth it," said John with emphasis; and he shut to the door
+of the cab, and watched it drive away. Then he went back to Archie's
+room, and sat down to consider. A faint odour of scent hung about the
+room. He got up and flung open the window. Years afterwards, if a woman
+used that particular scent, the same loathing disgust returned upon him.
+
+"He took three days' leave to nurse his father at Brighton, with the
+intention of coming back here to-night," John said to himself. "He will
+be here directly." And he made up his mind what he would do.
+
+And in truth a few minutes later a hansom rattled to the door, and
+Archie came in, breathless with haste. He looked eagerly round the room,
+and then, as he caught sight of the unexpected occupant, his face
+crimsoned, and he grinned nervously.
+
+"She is gone," said John, without moving.
+
+"Gone? Who? I don't know what you mean."
+
+"No, of course not. What made you so late?"
+
+"Train broke down outside London."
+
+"I came here to get your address at Brighton, because I have news for
+you. You are there at this moment, aren't you, looking after your
+father?"
+
+Archie did not answer. He only grinned and showed his teeth. John was
+aware that though he stood quietly enough by the table, turning over
+some loose silver in his pocket, he was in a state of blind fury. He
+also knew that if he waited a little it would pass. Something in John's
+moral and physical strength had always the power to quell Archie's fits
+of passion.
+
+"I had no intention of prying on you," said John, after an interval. "I
+wanted your address at Brighton, and I could not wait till to-morrow for
+it. I am going to Paris to-night on business, and--as it is yours as
+much as mine--you will go with me."
+
+Archie never indulged in those flowers of speech with which some adorn
+their conversation. But there are exceptions to every rule, and he made
+one now. He culled, so to speak, one large bouquet of the choicest
+epithets and presented it to John.
+
+"He knew not what to say, and so he swore." That is why men swear often,
+and women seldom.
+
+"I shall not leave you in London with that woman," said John, calmly.
+"You will go to her if I do."
+
+"I shall do as I think fit," stammered Archie, striking the table with
+his slender white hand.
+
+"There you err," said John. "You will start with me in half an hour for
+Paris."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                       "There's not a crime
+     But takes its proper change out still in crime
+     If once rung on the counter of this world."
+                               E. B. BROWNING.
+
+
+There is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fashioned
+hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little _cour_ in the middle of
+the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plashing
+therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been
+a very fashionable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her _salon_
+near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why
+John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself,
+unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there
+together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined
+to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as
+he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young
+man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and
+who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white
+curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the
+sitting-room in which John was walking up and down.
+
+He had put several questions to Archie respecting the state of his
+father's health, and that gentleman had assured him he was all right,
+quite able to look after himself; no need for him to remain with him.
+
+"Of course not," said John, "or you would not have left him. But is he
+able to attend to business?"
+
+"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis of ignorance.
+
+As long as Archie was in the next room, out of harm's way, John did not
+want his company. He knew that when he did appear he had to tell him
+that for eight and twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's
+substance; and then he must post the letter lying ready written on the
+table to Colonel Tempest, only needing the address.
+
+After that life was a blank. Archie would rush home, of course. John did
+not know where he should go, except that it would not be with Archie.
+Back to Overleigh? No. And with a sudden choking sensation he realized
+that he should not see Overleigh again. He wondered what Mitty was doing
+at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut against the nursery
+window would ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were out. He had
+noticed them as he returned from an interview with Lord ----. That
+gentleman had been much pressed for time, but had nevertheless accorded
+him a quarter of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed by the disclosure
+the young man made to him, deplored the event as it affected John, but
+after the first moment was obviously more concerned about the seat, and
+the loss of the Tempest support, than the wreck of John's career. After
+a decorous interval, Lord ---- had put a few questions to him about
+Colonel Tempest, his age, political views, etc. John perceived with what
+intentions those questions were put, and they made it the harder for him
+to ask the great man to help him to a livelihood.
+
+As John spoke, and the elder man's eye sought his watch, John
+experienced for the first time the truth of the saying that the highest
+price that can be paid for anything is to have to ask for it. If it had
+not been for Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it.
+
+"But my dear--er--Tempest," said Lord ----, "surely we need not
+anticipate that--er--your uncle--er--that Colonel Tempest will fail to
+make a suitable provision for one--who--who----"
+
+"He may offer to do so," replied John; "but if he did, I should not take
+it. He is not the kind of man from whom it is possible to accept money."
+
+"Still, under the circumstances, the extraordinary combination of
+circumstances, I should advise you to--my time is so circumscribed--I
+should certainly advise you to--you see, Tempest, with every feeling of
+regard for yourself and your father--ahem--Mr. Tempest before you, it is
+difficult for a person situated as I am at the present moment, to offer
+you, on the eve of the general election, any position at all adequate
+to your undeniably great abilities."
+
+"We shall not hear much more of my great abilities now that I am
+penniless," said John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind of
+employment by which I can support myself and an old servant, I shall be
+thankful."
+
+Lord ---- promised to do his best. He felt obliged to add that he could
+do but little, but he would do what he could. John might rest assured of
+that. In the meantime---- He looked anxiously at the watch on the table.
+John understood, and took his leave. Lord ---- pressed him warmly by the
+hand, commended his conduct, once more deplored the turn events had
+taken, which he should consider as strictly private until they had been
+publicly announced, and assured him he would keep him in his mind, and
+communicate with him immediately should any vacancy occur that, etc.,
+etc.
+
+John retraced his steps wearily to the hotel. The loss of his career had
+stung him yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort seemed of far greater
+importance to-day--how to provide a home for her with a little kitchen
+in it. John wondered whether he and Mitty could live on a hundred a
+year. He knew a good deal about the ways and means of the working
+classes, but of how the poor of his own class lived he knew nothing.
+
+But even the thought of Mitty could not hold him long. His mind ever
+went back to Di with an agony of despair and rapture. During these
+three interminable months during which he had not seen her, he had
+pictured her to himself as taking life as usual, wondering perhaps
+sometimes--yes, certainly wondering--why he did not come; but it had
+never struck him that she would be unhappy. When he saw her he had
+suddenly realized that the same emotions which had rent his soul had
+left their imprint on her face. Could women really love like men? Could
+Di actually, after her own fashion, feel towards him one tithe of the
+love he felt for her? John recognized with an exaltation, which for the
+moment transfigured as by fire the empty desolation of his heart, that
+the change which had been wrought in Di was his own work. Her cheek had
+grown pale for him, her eyes had wept for him, her very beauty had
+become dimmed for his sake.
+
+"I shall go mad," said John, starting to his feet. "Why is that damned
+letter still unposted?"
+
+Purpose was melting within him. The irrevocable step even now had not
+been taken. Lord ---- and his own lawyer would say nothing if at the
+eleventh hour he drew back. He must act finally this instant, or he
+would never act at all.
+
+He went into the next room, where Archie was languidly shaving himself
+in a pink silk _peignoir_, and obtained from him Colonel Tempest's
+address. He addressed the letter, and took his hat and stick.
+
+"I will post it myself this instant," he said to himself.
+
+He went quickly downstairs and across the little court, scattering the
+pigeons. His face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid sunshine.
+
+He passed under the archway into the street, and as he did so two
+well-dressed men came out of a _café_ on the opposite side. Before he
+had gone many steps one of them crossed the road, and raised his hat,
+holding out a card.
+
+"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he said respectfully.
+
+John stopped and looked at the man. He did not know him. The decisive
+moment had come even before posting the letter.
+
+"Now or never," whispered conscience.
+
+"My name is Fane," he said, and passed on.
+
+The man fell back at once and rejoined his companion.
+
+"I told you so," he said. "That man is a deal too old, and he said his
+name was Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as I said from the
+first. That ain't real hair. It's the wig as alters him."
+
+John posted his letter, saw it slide past recall, and then walked back
+to the hotel, found Archie in the sitting-room reading the playbills for
+the evening, and told him.
+
+Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of our fellow-creatures than the
+manner in which they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. Archie had
+some of the callousness of feeling for others which accompanies lack of
+imagination. He had never put himself in the place of others. He was not
+likely to begin now. He had no intention of hurting John by setting his
+iron heel on his face. He had no idea people minded being trodden on.
+And, indeed, as John stood by the window with his hands clasped behind
+his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared to be to anything that
+Archie, pacing up and down the room with flashing eyes, could say. He
+had at last closed the iron gates of the irrevocable behind himself, and
+he was at first too much stunned by the clang even to hear what the
+excited young man was talking about. Perhaps it was just as well.
+
+"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's attention came slowly back. "To
+think of the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! He has missed it
+all his best years, but I hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed."
+Archie felt he could afford to be generous. "And Di, John, dear old Di,
+shall come and queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have a suitable
+fortune. I'll make father do the right thing by Di. He won't want to do
+more than he can help, because she has never been much of a daughter to
+him; but he shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off quick enough;
+and I'll see it gets about. And don't you be down-hearted, John. We'll
+do the right thing by you. You know you never cared for the money when
+you had it. You were always a bit of a screw, to yourself as well as to
+others--I will say that for you; but--let me see--you allowed me three
+hundred a year. Don't you wish now it had been four? for you shall have
+the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I dare say I shall be a bit freer
+with a ten-pound note now and then than ever you were to me."
+
+"There will be no necessity for this reckless generosity," said John,
+wondering why he did not writhe, as a man might who watches a knife cut
+into his benumbed limb. It gave him no pain.
+
+"And you shall have a hunter," continued Archie. "By Jove, what hunting
+_I_ shall have! I shall get the governor to add another wing to the
+stables; and I will keep Quicksilver for you, John. You mustn't turn
+rusty because the luck has come to us at last. You know I knew all along
+I ought to have been the heir, and I put up with your being there, and
+never raised a dust."
+
+"I think I can promise I shall not raise a dust," said John,
+dispassionately, watching the knife turn in his flesh.
+
+"And--and," continued Archie--"why, I need not marry money now. I can
+take my pick." New vistas seemed to open at every turn. His weak mouth
+fell ajar. "My word, John, times are changed. And--my debts; I can pay
+them off."
+
+"And run up more," said John. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any
+good."
+
+"I don't call it much of an ill wind," said Archie, chuckling; "not much
+of an ill wind."
+
+In spite of himself, John laughed aloud at the _naïveté_ of Archie's
+remark. That it was an ill wind to John had not even crossed his mind.
+
+It would cross Di's, John thought. She would do him justice. But, alas!
+from the few who will do us justice we always want so much more,
+something infinitely greater than justice--at least, John did.
+
+The early _table d'hôte_ dinner broke in on Archie's soliloquy, and,
+much to John's relief, that favoured young gentleman discovered that a
+lady of his acquaintance was dancing at one of the theatres that
+evening, and he determined to go and see her. He could not persuade John
+to accompany him, even though he offered, with the utmost generosity,
+to introduce him to her.
+
+"Well, if you won't, you won't," said Archie, seeing his persuasions did
+nought avail, and much preferring to go by himself. "If you would rather
+sit over the fire in the dumps, that's your affair, not mine. Ta-ta. I
+expect you will have turned in before I'm back. By-the-by, can you lend
+me five thick 'uns?"
+
+John was on the point of refusing when he remembered that the actual
+money he had with him was more Archie's than his.
+
+"Thank'ee," said Archie. "You part easier than you used to do. I expect
+it'll be the last time I shall borrow of you--eh, John? It will be the
+other way about in future."
+
+"Will it?" said John, as he put back his pocket-book.
+
+Archie laughed and went out.
+
+Oh! it is good to be young and handsome and admired. The dancers
+pirouetted in the intense electric light, and the music played on every
+chord of Archie's light pleasure-loving soul. And he clapped and
+applauded with the rest, his pulse leaping high and higher. A sense of
+triumph possessed him. His one thorn in the flesh was gone for ever. He
+rode on the top of the wave. He had had all else before, and now the one
+thing that was lacking to him had come. He was rich, rich, rich. There
+was much goods laid up for many years of pleasure.
+
+Archie touched the zenith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very late, or rather it was very early, when he walked home
+through the deserted streets. A great mental exaltation was still upon
+him, but his body was exhausted, and the cool night air and the
+silence, after the babel of tongues, and the shrieking choruses, and the
+flaring lights of the last few hours, were pleasant to his aching eyes
+and head.
+
+The dawn stretched like a drawn sword behind the city. The Seine lay, a
+long line of winding mist under its many bridges. The ruins of the
+scorched Tuileries pushed up against the sky. Archie leant a moment on
+the parapet, and looked down to the Seine below whispering in its
+shroud. He took off his hat and pushed back the light curling hair from
+his forehead, laughing softly to himself.
+
+An invisible boat, with a red blur coming down-stream, was making a low
+continuous warning sound.
+
+A hand came suddenly over his shoulder, and was pressed upon his mouth,
+and at the same instant something exceeding sharp and swift, pointed
+with death, pierced his back, once and again. Archie saw his hat drop
+over the parapet into the mist.
+
+He tried to struggle, but in vain. He was choking.
+
+"It is a dream," he said. "I shall wake. I have dreamt it before."
+
+He looked wildly round him.
+
+The steadfast dawn was witness from afar. There was the boat still
+passing down-stream. There was the city before him, with its spires
+piercing the mist. _Was_ it a dream?
+
+The hot blood rushed up into his mouth. The drenched hand released its
+pressure.
+
+"I shall wake," he said, and he fell forward on his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     "The earth buildeth on the earth castles and towers;
+     The earth sayeth to the earth, 'All shall be ours;'
+     The earth walketh on the earth, glistering like gold;
+     The earth goeth to the earth sooner than it wold."
+
+
+John was late next morning. He had not slept for many nights, and the
+heavy slumber of entire exhaustion fell on him towards dawn. It was
+nearly midday when he re-entered the sitting-room where he had sat up so
+late the night before.
+
+He went to Archie's room to see whether he had come in; but it was
+empty.
+
+He was impatient to be gone, to get away from that marble-topped
+side-table, and the horsehair chairs, and the gilt clock on the
+mantelpiece. At least, he thought he wished to get away from these
+things; but it was from himself that he really wanted to get away--from
+this miserable tortured self that was all that was left of him in this
+his hour of weakness and prostration; the hour which inevitably succeeds
+all great exertions of strength. How could he drag this wretched
+creature about with him? He abhorred himself; the thought of being with
+himself was intolerable. It seems hard that the nobler side of human
+nature, which can cheer and urge its weaker brother up such steep paths
+of duty and self-sacrifice, should desert us when the summit is
+achieved, leaving the weaker to wail unreproved over its bleeding feet
+and rent garments till we madden at the sound.
+
+An overwhelming sense of loneliness fell on John as he sat waiting for
+Archie to come in. He had no strong, earnest, steadfast self to bear
+him company. He felt deserted, lost.
+
+Who has not experienced it, that fierce depression and loathing of all
+life, which, though at the time we know it not, is only the writhing and
+fainting of the starved human affections! The very ordinary sources from
+which the sharpest suffering springs, shows us later on how narrow are
+the limits within which our common human nature works, and from which
+yet irradiate such diversities of pain.
+
+Alphonse disturbed him at last to ask whether he and "Monsieur" would
+dine at _table d'hôte_. "Monsieur," with a glance at Archie's door, had
+not yet come in.
+
+John said they would both dine; and then, roused somewhat by the
+interruption, an idea struck him. Had Archie, in the excitement of the
+moment, gone back to England without telling him?
+
+He went to the room, but there were no evidences of departure. On the
+bed the clothes were thrown which Archie had worn on the previous day.
+The gold watch John had given him was on the dressing-table. He had
+evidently left it there on purpose, not caring, perhaps, to risk taking
+it with him. All the paraphernalia of a man who studies his appearance
+were strewed on the table. There was his little moustache-brush, and
+phial of _brilliantine_ to burnish it. John knew that he would never
+have left _that_ behind. Archie had evidently intended to return.
+
+In the mean while hour succeeded hour, but he did not come. That Archie
+should have been out all night was not surprising, but that he should be
+still out now in his evening clothes in the daytime, began to be
+incomprehensible. After a few premonitory tremors of misgiving, which,
+man-like, he laughed at himself for entertaining, John took alarm.
+
+Evening fell, and still no Archie. And then a hideous night followed, in
+which John forgot everything in heaven above or earth beneath except
+Archie. The police were informed. The actress at whose house he had
+supped after the play was interviewed, but could only vociferate between
+her sobs that he had left her house with the remainder of her party in
+the early hours of the morning, and she had not seen him since.
+
+Directly the office opened, John telegraphed to his colonel to know if
+he had returned to London. The answer came, "Absent without leave."
+
+John remembered that he had only three days' leave, and that the third
+day was up yesterday. Archie would not have forgotten that.
+
+A nightmare of a day passed. John had been out during the greater part
+of it, rushing back at intervals in the hope, that was no longer
+anything but a masked despair, of finding Archie in his rooms on his
+return.
+
+In the dusk of the afternoon he came back once more, and peered for the
+twentieth time into the littered bedroom, which the frightened servants
+had left exactly as Archie had left it. He was standing in the doorway
+looking into the empty room, where a certain horror was beginning to
+gather round the familiar objects with which it was strewed, when a
+voice spoke to him.
+
+It was the superintendent of police to whom he had gone long ago--the
+night before--when first the horror began. Alphonse, who had shown him
+up, was watching through the doorway.
+
+The man said something in French. John did not hear him, but it did not
+matter much. He knew. They went downstairs together. Alphonse brought
+him his hat and stick. The other waiters were gathered in a little knot
+at the _table d'hôte_ door. A fiacre was waiting under the archway. John
+and the superintendent got into it, and it drove off at once without
+waiting for directions. They were lighting the lamps in the streets. The
+dusk was falling, falling like the shadow of death. They drove deeper
+and ever deeper into it.
+
+Time ceased to be.
+
+"Nous voiçi, Monsieur," said the man, gravely, as they pulled up before
+a building, the long low outline of which was dimly visible.
+
+John knew it was the Morgue.
+
+He followed his guide down a white-washed passage into a long room.
+There was a cluster of people at the further end, towards which the man
+was leading him, and in the dusk there was a subdued whispering, and a
+sound of trickling water.
+
+As they reached the further end, some one turned on the electric light,
+and it fell full on a man's figure on one of the slabs. A little crowd
+of people were peering through the glass screen at the toy which the
+Seine had tired of and cast aside.
+
+"Ah! qu'il est beau," said a high woman's voice.
+
+John shaded his eyes and looked.
+
+The face was turned away, but John knew the hair, fair to whiteness in
+that brilliant light, as he had often seen it in London ball-rooms.
+
+They let him through the glass screen which kept off the crowd, and,
+oblivious of the many eyes watching him, John bent over the slab and
+touched the clenched marble hand with the signet-ring on it which he had
+given him when they were at Oxford together.
+
+Yes, it was Archie.
+
+The dead face was set in the nervous grin with which he had been wont in
+life to meet the inevitable and the distasteful.
+
+The blue pencillings of dissolution had touched to inexorable
+distinctness the thin lines of dissipation in the cheek and at the
+corners of the mouth. The death of the body had overtaken the creeping
+death of the soul. Their landmarks met.
+
+The poor beautiful effeminate face, devoid of all that makes death
+bearable, stared up at the electric light.
+
+An impotent overwhelming compassion, as for some ephemeral irresponsible
+being of another creation, who knows not how to guide itself in this
+grim world of law, and has wandered blindfold within the sweep of a vast
+machinery of which it knew nothing, wrung John's heart. He hid his face
+in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     "For human bliss and woe in the frail thread
+       Of human life are all so closely twined,
+     That till the shears of fate the texture shred,
+       The close succession cannot be disjoined,
+       Nor dare we, from our hour, judge that which comes behind."
+                                         SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+
+Di had seen her father and Archie off on their journey to Brighton, and,
+having arranged to replace her brother in three days' time, was
+surprised when a hasty note, the morning after their departure, informed
+her that Archie had been recalled to London _on business_, and that she
+must go to her father at once.
+
+Mrs. Courtenay was incensed. Archie had shirked before, and now he had
+shirked again. But Colonel Tempest remained in far too precarious a
+condition for her to refuse to allow her granddaughter to go, as she
+would certainly otherwise have done. So Di went off the morning after
+the Speaker's party.
+
+She had told Mrs. Courtenay that she had met John there.
+
+"In one way I am glad to have met him," she said firmly, her proud lip
+quivering. "Any uncertainty I may have been weak enough to feel is at an
+end, and it was time the end should come. For, in spite of all you said,
+I had had a lingering idea that if we met----. And now we _have_
+met--and he had evidently no wish to see me again."
+
+Mrs. Courtenay looked fixedly at the beautiful pallid face, and wondered
+that she had ever wished Di had a heart.
+
+"This pain will pass," she said gently. "You have always believed me,
+Di; believe me now. Take courage and wait. You have had an untroubled
+life till now. That has passed. Trouble has come. It is part of life. It
+will pass too; not the feeling, perhaps, but the suffering."
+
+"Good-bye, my child," she said a little later, kissing the girl's cold
+cheek with a tenderness which Di was powerless to return. "Take care of
+yourself. Go out every day; the sea air will do you good. And tell your
+father I cannot spare you more than a fortnight."
+
+Di would have given anything to show her grandmother that she was
+thankful--oh, how thankful in this grey world!--for her sympathy and
+love, but she had no words. She kissed Mrs. Courtenay, and went down to
+the cab.
+
+Mrs. Courtenay remained motionless until she heard it drive away. Then
+she let two tears run down from below her spectacles, and wiped them
+away. No more followed them. The old cannot give way like the young.
+Mrs. Courtenay had once said that nothing had power to touch her very
+nearly; but she was still vulnerable on one point. Her old heart, worn
+with so many troubles, ached for her granddaughter.
+
+"Thank God," she said to herself, "that in the next world there will be
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Perhaps God Almighty sees it's
+a mistake."
+
+Di found Colonel Tempest wrapped up in a _duvet_ in an armchair by the
+window of his sitting-room, in a state of equal indignation against his
+children for deserting him, and against the rain for blurring the
+seaview from the window. With his nurse, it is hardly necessary to add,
+he was not on speaking terms--a fact which seemed to cause that
+patient, apathetic person very little annoyance, she being, as she told
+Di, "accustomed to gentlemen."
+
+Di soothed him as best she could, took his tray from the nurse at the
+door, so that he might be spared as much as possible the sight of the
+most hideous woman in the world, rang for lights, and drew a curtain
+before the untactful rain, while he declaimed alternately on the
+enormity of Archie's behaviour, and on the callousness of Mrs. Courtenay
+in endeavouring to keep his daughter, his only daughter, away from him.
+Colonel Tempest and Archie detested Mrs. Courtenay. However much the
+father and son might disagree and bicker on most subjects, they could
+always sing a little duet together in perfect harmony about her.
+
+Colonel Tempest began a feeble solo on that theme to Di when he had
+finished with Archie; but Di visibly froze, and somehow the subject,
+often as it was started, always dropped. Di, as Colonel Tempest
+frequently informed her, did not care to hear the truth about her
+grandmother. If she knew all that _he_ did about her, and what her
+behaviour had been to _him_, she would not be so fond of her as she
+evidently was.
+
+Earlier in his illness Di had been obliged to exercise patience with her
+father, but she needed none now. That is the one small compensation for
+deep trouble. It numbs the power of feeling small irritations. It is
+when it begins to lift somewhat that the small irritations fit
+themselves out with new stings. Di had not reached that stage yet. The
+doctor who came daily to see her father looked narrowly at her, and
+ordered her to go out-of-doors as much as possible, in wet weather or
+fine.
+
+"I sometimes take a little nap after luncheon," said Colonel Tempest
+with dignity. "You might go out then, Di."
+
+"Miss Tempest will in any case go out morning and afternoon," said the
+doctor with decision.
+
+Colonel Tempest had before had his doubts whether the doctor understood
+his case, but now they were confirmed. He wished to change doctors, and
+a painful scene ensued between him and Di, in the course of which a hole
+was kicked in the _duvet_, and a cup of broth was upset. But it is an
+ascertained fact that women are not amenable to reason. Di sewed up the
+hole in the _duvet_, rubbed the carpet, and remained, as Colonel Tempest
+hysterically informed her, "as obstinate as her mother before her."
+
+On the second morning after her arrival at Brighton she was sitting with
+Colonel Tempest, reading the papers to him, when the waiter brought in
+the letters. There were none for her, two for her father. One was a
+foreign letter with a blue French stamp. She took them to him where he
+lay on the sofa.
+
+Colonel Tempest looked at them.
+
+"Nothing from Archie again," he said. "He does not care even to write
+and ask whether I am alive or dead."
+
+"Archie is not a good hand at writing," said Di, echoing, for the sake
+of saying something, the time-honoured masculine plea for exemption from
+the tedium of domestic correspondence.
+
+"This is John's hand," said Colonel Tempest. "A Paris postmark. How
+these rich men do rush about!"
+
+Di had actually not known it was John's writing. She had never seen it,
+to her knowledge, but nevertheless it appeared to her extraordinary that
+she had not at once divined that it was his. She was not anxious to
+hear her father's comments on John's letter, or the threadbare remark,
+sacred to the poor relation, that when the rich one _was_ sitting down
+to draw a cheque he might just as well have written it for double the
+amount. He would never have known the difference. The poor relation
+always knows exactly how much the rich one can afford to give. So Di
+told her father she was going out, and left the room.
+
+It stung her, as she laced her boots, to think that John had probably
+sent another cheque to cover their expenses at the hotel, and that the
+fried soles and semolina-pudding which she had ordered for luncheon
+would be paid for by him. It exasperated her still more to know that
+whatever John sent, Colonel Tempest would pronounce to be mean.
+
+Before she had finished lacing her boots, however, the sitting-room door
+was opened, and Di heard her father calling wildly to her.
+
+Colonel Tempest was not allowed to move, except with great precaution,
+owing to the slow healing of the obstinate internal injury caused by
+that unlucky pistol-shot.
+
+She rushed headlong downstairs.
+
+"Father!" she cried, horrified to find him standing on the landing.
+"Father, come back at once!" And she put her arms round him, and
+supported him back to the sofa.
+
+He was trembling from head to foot. She saw that something had happened,
+but he was not in a state to be questioned. She administered what
+restoratives she had at hand, and presently the constantly moving lips
+got out the words, "Read it;" and Colonel Tempest pointed to a letter on
+the floor.
+
+"Read it," repeated Colonel Tempest, lying back on his cushions, and
+recovering from his momentary collapse. "Read it."
+
+Di picked up the letter and sat down by the window. She was suddenly too
+tired to stand. Her father was talking wildly, but she did not hear him;
+was calling to her to read it aloud, but she did not hear him. She saw
+only John's strong, small handwriting.
+
+It was a business letter, couched in the most matter-of-fact terms. John
+stated his case--expressed a formal regret that the facts he mentioned
+had not come to light at Mr. Tempest's death, mentioned that the
+accumulation of income during his minority had fortunately remained
+untouched, that he had desired his lawyer to communicate with Colonel
+Tempest, and signed himself "John Fane." He had written the word
+"Tempest," and had then struck it through.
+
+Di pressed her forehead against the glass on which the rain was beating.
+
+Was the emotion which was shattering her joy or sorrow, or both?
+
+She knew it was joy. In a lightning-flash of comprehension she realized
+that it was this awful calamity which had kept John silent, which had
+held him back from coming to her, from asking her to marry him. He loved
+her still! Love, dead and buried, had risen out of his grave. The
+impossible had happened. John loved her still.
+
+"I cannot bear it," she said; and for a moment the long yellow waves,
+and her father's impatient voice, and even John's letter, were alike
+blotted out, unheard.
+
+Colonel Tempest considered Di's apathy, after she had read the letter,
+unfeeling and unsympathetic in the extreme, and he did not hesitate to
+tell her so. But when she presently turned her averted face towards him
+he was already off on another tack, his excitement, which seemed to
+increase rather than diminish, tossing him as a wave tosses a spar.
+
+"Twenty years," he said tremulously. "Think of it, Di--not that you seem
+to care! Twenty years have I toiled and moiled in poverty, twenty years
+have I and my children been ground down while that nameless interloper
+has spent our money right and left. Oh, my God! I've got it at last.
+I've got my own at last. But who will give me back those twenty years?"
+and Colonel Tempest's voice broke into a sob.
+
+Other consequences of that letter began to dawn on Di's awakening
+consciousness.
+
+"Then John," she said, bewildered. "Oh, father, what will become of
+John?"
+
+"John," said Colonel Tempest, bitterly, "is now just where I was twenty
+years ago--disinherited, penniless. He has kept me out all these years,
+and now at last Providence gives me my own."
+
+It is to be hoped that Providence is not really responsible for all the
+shady transactions for which we offer up our best thanks.
+
+"I dare say he has put by," continued Colonel Tempest. "He has had time
+enough."
+
+"You have not read the letter carefully," said Di. "He only discovered
+all this less than three months ago, and you have been ill for more than
+two."
+
+Colonel Tempest did not hear her. He had ceased for the last twenty
+years to hear anything he did not want to.
+
+"Fifty thousand a year," he went on; "not a penny less. And the New
+River shares have gone up since Jack's day. And there was a large sum
+which rolled up during the minority. John is right there. There must be
+over a hundred thousand. You shall have that, Di. Archie will kick, but
+you shall have it. Eight thousand pounds John settled on you a year ago.
+That was the amount of _his_ generosity to my poor girl. You shall not
+have a penny less than a hundred thousand. Not during my lifetime, of
+course; but when I die----" he added hastily.
+
+Di could articulate nothing.
+
+"I shall pay my own debts and Archie's in a moment," he continued, not
+noticing whether she answered or not. "If you want a new gown, Di, you
+may send the bill to me. I don't believe I owe a thousand, and Archie
+not so much, poor lad, though John was always pulling a long face over
+his debts. How deuced mean John was from first to last! Well, do as you
+would be done by. I'll do for him alone what he thought enough for the
+two of you. I'll never give him cause to say I'm close-fisted. He shall
+have your eight thousand, and he shall have three hundred a year, the
+same that he allowed Archie, as well."
+
+"He won't take it."
+
+"Won't take it!" said Colonel Tempest, contemptuously. "That's all you
+know about the world, Di. I tell you he'll have to take it. I tell you
+he has not a sixpence in the world at this moment, to say nothing of
+owing me twenty years' income."
+
+Colonel Tempest rambled on of how Archie should leave the army and live
+at Overleigh, of how Di should live there too, and Mrs. Courtenay might
+go to the devil. Presently he fell to wondering what state the shooting
+was in, and how many pheasants John was breeding at that moment. Every
+instant it became more unbearable, till at last Di sent for the nurse,
+made an excuse of posting her letters, and slipped out of the room.
+
+She went out to her old friends, the yellow waves, and, too exhausted to
+walk, sat down under the lee of one of the high wooden rivets between
+which the sea licks the pebbly shore into grooves.
+
+Gradually the tension of her mind relaxed. Di sat and watched the waves
+until they washed away the high invalid voice vibrating in some acute
+recess of her brain; washed away the hideous thought that they were rich
+because John was penniless and dishonoured; washed away everything
+except the one fact that his silence was accounted for, and that he
+loved her after all.
+
+Di looked out across the rain-trodden sea. If it was raining, she did
+not know it. What did anything in this wide world matter so long as John
+loved her? Poverty was nothing. Marriage was nothing either. What did
+it matter if they could not marry so long as they loved each other?
+
+Once in a lifetime it is vouchsafed alike to the worldly and to the
+pure, to the earnest and to the frivolous, to discern that vision--which
+has been ever life's greatest reality or life's greatest illusion
+according to the character of the beholder--that to love and to be loved
+is enough.
+
+A wet glint came across the sea, exquisite and evanescent as the gleam
+across Di's heart.
+
+"It is enough!" said Di; and her soul was flooded with a solemn joy a
+thousand times deeper than when she had first discovered her love for
+John, and his for her, and a brilliant future was before her.
+
+Sorrow with his pick mines the heart. But he is a cunning workman. He
+deepens the channels whereby happiness may enter, and hollows out new
+chambers for joy to abide in, when he is gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding
+       small."
+                                              LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+The doctor was sitting with Colonel Tempest on Di's return to the hotel,
+and Di perceived that her father, who was still in a very excited state,
+had been telling him about his sudden change of fortune.
+
+The doctor courteously offered his congratulations, and on leaving made
+a pretext of inquiring after Di's health in order to see her alone.
+
+"Colonel Tempest has been telling me of his unexpected access of
+wealth," he said. "In his present condition of nervous prostration, and
+tendency to cerebral excitement, the information should most certainly
+have been withheld from him. His brain is not in a state to bear the
+strain which such an event might have put upon it, has put upon it. Were
+such a thing to occur again in his enfeebled condition, I cannot answer
+for the consequences."
+
+"It was absolutely unforeseen," said Di. "None of us had the remotest
+suspicion. He has been in the habit of reading his letters for the past
+month."
+
+"They must be kept from him for the present," replied the doctor. "Let
+them be brought to you in future, and use your own discretion about
+showing them to him after you have read them yourself. Your father must
+be guarded from all agitation."
+
+This was more easily said than done. Nothing could turn Colonel
+Tempest's shattered, restless mind from hopping like a grasshopper on
+that one subject for the remainder of the day. The bit of cork in his
+medicine, which at another time would have elicited a torrent of
+indignation, excited only a momentary attention. He talked without
+ceasing--hinted darkly at danger to John which that young man's
+creditable though tardy action had averted, alluded to passages in his
+own life which nothing would induce him to divulge, and then lighting on
+a sentimental vein, discoursed of a happy old age (the old age of
+fiction), in which he should see Archie's and Di's children playing in
+the gallery at Overleigh. And the old name----
+
+Di had not realized, until her parent descanted upon the subject in a
+way that set her teeth on edge, how hideous, how vulgar, is the seamy
+side of pride of birth. When Colonel Tempest began to dwell on "the
+goodness and the grace that on his birth had smiled," shall we blame Di
+if she put on the clock half an hour, and rang for the nurse?
+
+Things were not much better next morning. Di gave strict orders that all
+letters and telegrams should be brought to her room. Colonel Tempest
+fidgeted because he had not heard from the lawyer in whose hands John
+had placed the transfer of the property. The letter was in Di's pocket,
+but she dared not give it to him, for though it contained nothing to
+agitate him, she knew that the fact that she had opened it would raise a
+whirlwind.
+
+"And Archie," said Colonel Tempest, querulously--"I ought to have heard
+from him too. If John told him the same day that he wrote to me, we
+ought to have heard from Archie this morning. I should have imagined
+that though Archie did not give his father a thought when he was poor,
+he might have thought him worthy of a little consideration _now_."
+
+"If that is the motive you would have given him if he had written, it is
+just as well he has not," said Di; but she wondered at his silence
+nevertheless.
+
+But she did not wonder long.
+
+She left her father busily writing to an imaginary lawyer, for he had
+neither the name nor address of John's, and on the landing met a servant
+bringing a telegram to her room. She took it upstairs, and though it was
+addressed to her father, opened it. She had no apprehension of evil. The
+old are afraid of telegrams, but the young have made them common, and
+have worn out their prestige.
+
+The telegram was from John, merely stating that Archie had been taken
+seriously ill.
+
+Di's heart gave a leap of thankfulness that her father had been spared
+this further shock. But Archie. Seriously ill. She was indignant at
+John's vague statement. What did seriously ill mean? Why could not he
+say what was the matter? And how could she keep the fact of his illness
+from her father? Ought she to go at once to Archie? Seriously ill. How
+like a man to send a telegram of that kind! She would telegraph at once
+to John for particulars, and go or stay according as the doctor thought
+she could or could not safely leave her father. Di put on her walking
+things, and ran out to the post-office round the corner, where she
+despatched a peremptory telegram to John; and then, seeing there was no
+one else to advise her, hurried to the doctor's house close at hand. For
+a wonder he was in. For a greater still, his last patient walked out as
+she walked in. The doctor, with the quickness of his kind, saw the
+difficulty, and caught up his hat to come with her.
+
+"You shall go to your brother if you can," was the only statement to
+which he would commit himself during the two minutes' walk in the rain;
+the two minutes which sealed Colonel Tempest's fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one knew exactly how it happened. Perhaps the hall porter had gone to
+his dinner, and the little boy who took his place for half an hour
+brought up the telegram to the person to whom it was addressed. No one
+knew afterwards how it had happened. It did happen, that was all.
+
+Colonel Tempest had the pink paper in his hand as the doctor and Di
+entered the room. He was laughing softly to himself.
+
+"Archie is dead," he said, chuckling. "That is what John would like me
+to believe. But I know better. It is John that is dead. It is John who
+had to be snuffed out. Swayne said so, and he knew. And John says it's
+Archie, and he will write. Ha, ha! We know better, eh, doctor? eh, Di?
+John's dead. Eight and twenty years old he was; but he's dead at last.
+He won't write any more. He won't spend my money any more. He won't keep
+me out any more."
+
+Colonel Tempest dropped on his knees. The only prayer he knew rose to
+his lips. "For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly
+thankful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For an awful day and night the fierce flame of delirium leaped and fell,
+and ever leaped again. With set face Di stood hour after hour in the
+blast of the furnace, till doctor and nurse marvelled at her courage and
+endurance.
+
+On the evening of the second day John came. He had written to tell
+Colonel Tempest of his coming, but the letter had not been opened.
+
+The doctor, thinking he was Di's brother, brought him into the
+sick-room, too crowded with fearful images for his presence to be
+noticed by the sick man.
+
+"John is dead," the high-pitched terrible voice was saying. "Blundering
+fools. First there was the railway, but Goodwin saved him; damn his
+officiousness. And then there was the fire. They nearly had him that
+time. How grey he looked! Burnt to ashes. Bandaged up to the eyes. But
+he got better. And then the carnival. They muffed it again. Oh, Lord,
+how slow they were! But"--the voice sank to a frightful whisper--"they
+got him in Paris. I don't know how they did it--it's a secret; but they
+trapped him at last."
+
+Suddenly the glassy eyes looked with horrified momentary recognition at
+John.
+
+"Risen from the dead," continued the voice. "I knew he would get up
+again. I always said he would; and he has. You can't kill John. There's
+no grave deep enough to hold him. Look at him with his head out now, and
+the earth upon his hair. We ought to have put a monument over him to
+keep him down. He's getting up. I tell you I did not do it. The grave's
+not big enough. Swayne dug it for him when he was a little boy--a little
+boy at school."
+
+Di turned her colourless face to John, and smiled at him, as one on the
+rack might smile at a friend to show that the anguish is not unbearable.
+She felt no surprise at seeing him. She was past surprise. She had
+forgotten that she had ever doubted his love.
+
+In silence he took the hand she held out towards him, and kept it in a
+strong gentle clasp that was more comfort than any words.
+
+Hour after hour they watched and ministered together, and hour by hour
+the lamp of life flared grimly low and lower. And after he had told
+everything--everything, everything that he had concealed in life--after
+John and Di had heard, in awed compassion and forgiveness, every word of
+the guilty secret which he had kept under lock and key so many years, at
+last the tide of remembrance ebbed away and life with it.
+
+Did he know them in the quiet hours that followed? Did he recognize
+them? They bent over him. They spoke to him gently, tenderly. Did he
+understand? They never knew.
+
+And so, in the grey of an April morning, poor Colonel Tempest,
+unconscious of death, which had had so many terrors for him in life,
+drifted tranquilly upon its tide from the human compassion that watched
+by him here, to the Infinite Pity beyond.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+     "Where there are twa seeking there will be a finding."
+
+
+After John had taken Di back to London he returned to Brighton, and from
+thence to Overleigh, to arrange for the double funeral. He had not
+remembered to mention that he was coming, and in the dusk of a wet
+afternoon he walked up by the way of the wood, and let himself in at the
+little postern in the wall. He had not thought he should return to
+Overleigh again, yet here he was once more in the dim gallery, with its
+faint scent of _pot-pourri_, his hand as he passed stirring it from
+long habit. The pictures craned through the twilight to look at him. He
+stole quietly upstairs and along the garret gallery. The nursery door
+was open. A glow of light fell on Mitty's figure. What was she doing?
+
+John stopped short and looked at her, and, with a sudden recollection as
+of some previous existence, understood.
+
+Mitty was packing. Two large white grocery boxes were already closed and
+corded in one corner. John saw "Best Cubes" printed on them, and it
+dawned upon his slow masculine consciousness that those boxes were part
+of Mitty's luggage.
+
+Mitty was standing in the middle of the room, holding at arm's length a
+little red flannel dressing-gown, which knocked twenty years off John's
+age as he looked.
+
+"I shall take it," she said, half aloud. "It's wore as thin as thin
+behind; that and the open socks as I've mended and better-be-mended;"
+and she thrust them both hastily, as if for fear she should repent, into
+a tin box, out of which the battered head of John's old horse protruded.
+
+If there was one thing certain in this world, it was that the Noah's ark
+would not go in unless the horse came out. Mitty tried many ways, and
+was contemplating them with arms akimbo when John came in.
+
+She showed no surprise at seeing him, and with astonishment John
+realized that it was only six days since he had left Overleigh. It was
+actually not yet a week since that far-distant afternoon, separated from
+the present by such a chasm, when he had lain on his face in the
+heather, and the deep passions of youth had rent him and let him go.
+Here at Overleigh time stopped. He came back twenty years older, and the
+almanac on his writing-table marked six days.
+
+John made the necessary arrangements for the funeral to take place at
+midnight, according to the Tempest custom, which he knew Colonel Tempest
+would have been the last to waive. He wrote to tell Di what he had
+settled, together with the hour and the date. He dared not advise her
+not to be present, but he remembered the vast concourse of people who
+had assembled at his father's funeral to see the torchlight procession,
+and he hoped she would not come.
+
+But Mrs. Courtenay wrote back that her granddaughter was fixed in her
+determination to be present, that she had reluctantly consented to it,
+and would accompany her herself. She added in a postscript that no doubt
+John would arrange for them to stay the night at Overleigh, and they
+should return to London the next day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night of the funeral was exceeding dark and still; so still that
+many, watching from a distance on Moat-hill, heard the voice saying, "I
+am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in
+Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
+
+And again--
+
+"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
+nothing out."
+
+The night was so calm that the torches burned upright and unwavering,
+casting a steadfast light on church and graveyard and tilted tombstones,
+on the crowded darkness outside, and on the worn faces of a man and
+woman who stood together between two open graves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John and Di exchanged no word as they drove home. There were lights and
+a fire in the music-room, and she went in there, and began absently to
+take off her hat and long crêpe veil. Mrs. Courtenay had gone to bed.
+
+John followed Di with a candle in his hand. He offered it to her, but
+she did not take it.
+
+"It is good-bye as well as good night," he said, holding out his hand.
+"I must leave here very early to-morrow."
+
+Di took no notice of his outstretched hand. She was looking into the
+fire.
+
+"You must rest," he said gently, trying to recall her to herself.
+
+A swift tremor passed over her face.
+
+"You are right," she said, in a low voice. "I will rest--when I have had
+five minutes' talk with you."
+
+John shut the door, and came back to the fireside. He believed he knew
+what was coming, and his face hardened. It was bitter to him that Di
+thought it worth while to speak to him on the subject. She ought to
+have known him better.
+
+She faced him with difficulty, but without hesitation. They looked each
+other in the eyes.
+
+"You are going to London early to see your lawyer," she said, "on the
+subject that you wrote to father about."
+
+"I am."
+
+"That is why I must speak to you to-night. I dare not wait." Her eyes
+fell before the stern intentness of his. Her voice faltered a moment,
+and then went on. "John, don't go. It is not necessary. Don't grieve me
+by leaving Overleigh, or--changing your name."
+
+A great bitterness welled up in John's heart against the woman he
+loved--the bitterness which sooner or later few men escape, of realizing
+how feeble is a woman's perception of what is honourable or
+dishonourable in a man.
+
+"Ah, Di," he said, "you are very generous. But do not let us speak of it
+again. Such a thing could not be."
+
+He took her hand, but she withdrew it instantly.
+
+"John," she said with dignity, "you misunderstand me. It would be a poor
+kind of generosity in me to offer what it is impossible for you to
+accept. You wound me by thinking I could do such a thing. I only meant
+to ask you to keep your present name and home for a little while,
+until--they both will become yours again by right--the day when--you
+marry me."
+
+A beautiful colour had mounted to Di's face. John's became white as
+death.
+
+"Do you love me?" he said hoarsely, shaking from head to foot.
+
+"Yes," she replied, trembling as much as he.
+
+He held her in his arms. The steadfast heart that understood and loved
+him beat against his own.
+
+"Di!" he stammered--"Di!"
+
+And they wept and clung together like two children.
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+Mitty's packing was never finished--why, she did not understand. But
+John, who helped her to rearrange her things, understood, and that was
+enough for her. For many springs and spring cleanings the horse-chestnut
+buds peered in at the nursery windows and found her still within. I
+think the wishes of Mitty's heart all came to pass, and that she loved
+"Miss Dinah;" but nevertheless I believe that, to the end of life, she
+never quite ceased to regret the little kitchen that John had spoken of,
+where she would have made "rock buns" for her lamb, and waited on him
+"hand and foot."
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
+LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+_D. & Co._
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 37975-8.txt or 37975-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/9/7/37975
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+